


On the Outside

by jellyfishline



Series: On the Outside [1]
Category: Persona 4
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Angst, Awkwardness, Fluff and Angst, Internalized Homophobia, M/M, Mutual Pining, Other Additional Tags to Be Added, Slow Burn, Spoilers
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2015-10-21
Updated: 2017-08-15
Packaged: 2018-04-27 09:53:51
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 5
Words: 29,644
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/5043805
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/jellyfishline/pseuds/jellyfishline
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Yosuke still doesn't know that much about Souji. No one does. It turns out that what they don't know might literally kill them.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. What of Me

**Author's Note:**

> I told myself I wasn't going to write this, but then I realized that I'd never read a fic that'd done This Particular Thing before, and suddenly I had 10k words of fic on my hard drive. And outlines. So many outlines.
> 
> Enjoy!
> 
> (Title taken from the song 'Fine On the Outside' by Priscilla Ahn. It seemed... relevant.)

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This chapter is brought to you by the song What of Me by Trespasser's William. Go listen to it I promise it's worth it!

It's a dumb idea. The kind of amazingly dumb idea that won't leave Yosuke alone. It nags at him like a mosquito. _No,_ he tells himself. _I am absolutely not going to bother him. He doesn't want to see me. He's probably furious at me._

 _Okay,_ says his brain. _But what if he's not?_

And that's how he ends up on Souji's porch, clutching a bag from Aiya and feeling more exposed than he does when he's facing down a Shadow. At least then, the only thing at stake is his life, and not... _this._

There's a horrible moment, after he knocks, when he thinks that no one will answer. That the house is empty, that he's gone—

The door creaks. Yosuke cracks open a smile. Only a strip of Souji's face is visible behind the door—an eye and a bit of silvery gray brow, expression unreadable.

“Hey, partner!” Yosuke flinches at the sound of his own voice—too loud, too exuberant. “Um. I brought dinner?”

He holds up the bag. Souji's eye flickers down, then back to Yosuke's face.

“Oh, did you eat already?” Dammit, this was stupid. “I mean, you probably did. That's okay, I just, I thought maybe—”

The door opens partway.

“I didn't,” Souji says, “eat.”

He holds out his hand. It takes Yosuke an agonizingly long moment to realize that he's waiting for Yosuke to hand over the bag.

“Oh, uh. Here you go.”

Souji takes the bag. It disappears inside the house, Souji along with it. The door shuts. Yosuke wonders if that's it, if Souji just expects him to walk off without a goodbye. Before he can decide, Souji comes back.

“Thanks,” he says, with a tired smile that looks almost genuine.

“No problem, partner!”

Too loud, again. The words seem to linger, echoing in the silence, bouncing off the fog.

Souji doesn't move, doesn't speak.

Yosuke wonders if now would be a good time to fake a cough. But Souji is staring at him so intently he thinks he might choke if he breathes too hard. He rubs the back of his neck instead. It's been too long since his last haircut—the shaggy ends scratch at his fingers. (Does Souji notice?)

“Uh, c-can I come in?” he asks, because apparently he has to ask, now. Those days when he could invite himself over to Souji's house and not worry about the consequence vanished along with Nanako's smile.

It's like a curtain drops. Souji's eyes shutter and his brow furrows and he looks—unreadable. “Why?”

It hurts more than any single word should. _Why_ —how the hell can he ask that, at a time like this? Isn't it obvious?

_Because we're friends. Because I care about you, dammit._

“I thought you might want some company,” Yosuke says instead, because now is not the time to throw his bullshit on his best friend. “There's, um, enough food for two.”

Souji blinks. “Oh.”

Still, he doesn't move. Yosuke shoves his hands in his pockets. It's freakin' freezing out here, the typical November chill underscored by the unspeakable bite of the fog. Souji has to feel it—he's just standing there in a long-sleeve shirt and sweatpants. He's not even wearing socks. But it’s like he's already frozen, hand on the door like he's thinking about slamming it in Yosuke's face, eyes on Yosuke or maybe seeing right through him to something far, far away.

Yosuke opens his mouth to say something, anything, apologize for the intrusion or ask again, but Souji beats him to it.

“You don't have to,” he says.

“I know,” Yosuke says. “I just thought—maybe you'd want to?”

He's waiting for Souji to actually answer—to offer some opinion, yes or no. But Souji just keeps looking at him, like he's never seen Yosuke before, or maybe like Yosuke is some vaguely amusing puzzle waiting to be solved.

“I'm okay,” he says. “Thank you for the thought, but I'm okay.”

His smile is straining at his lips, flickering in the corners _—fake—_ and Yosuke is suddenly, unaccountably, furious.

“ _No_ , you're _not,_ ” he says. “Look at you—you're a mess!” Souji stiffens. Yosuke backtracks. “I mean, all of us are messed up after—y'know. It's okay, I get it. So, so just stop being so stubborn and let me in, okay? I'm freezing my ass off out here.”

He shuffles a little on his feet, just to prove the point.

Souji frowns in that way he does when something is amusing but he's being too stoic to laugh. He shrugs his shoulders. “Come in, then.”

 _Finally,_ Yosuke thinks but doesn't say, because he's not _that_ much of an asshole. He shuffles onto the genkan, sliding off his shoes and shutting the door behind him. When he looks up again, Souji's still standing, still watching him, silent. His hands are awkward at his sides, like he's waiting to take Yosuke's coat. Or maybe like he's trying to prevent Yosuke from going any further.

Souji looks at a point somewhere over Yosuke's shoulder.

“It's, uh.” Souji coughs, only maybe it's supposed to be a laugh. “I haven't cleaned.”

Yosuke's about to say something like, “That's okay, I never clean my room anyway,” before he realizes what Souji means.

The house is, well. It's a _mess._ And not like, “Oh, there's some homework on the table,” kind of mess. Like, “this house is in danger of being condemned.” There's a stack of dishes soaking in stagnant, murky water that probably hasn't been touched in days. The garbage can is overturned and overflowing, with takeout boxes strewn across the floor. There is actual _dust_ on the stovetop, and a mysterious brown stain down the counter that could be anything from soy sauce to used cooking oil.

The living room isn't any better. There's a pile of laundry on the couch with a Souji-shaped dent in it, and Yosuke would wonder if he's been sleeping down here but honestly he'd be glad to think that Souji's slept the past week at all, considering the raccoon-rings around his eyes.

Worst of all, the television has been covered over by small, patterned, pink blanket. Out of all the chaos in the room, it alone looks orderly. _Like a shrine,_ Yosuke thinks, and stifles a shiver.

He turns to the kitchen—anything to get away from that blanket—and realizes that Souji has moved in front of the sink, arms spread like he's trying to block the mess with his body. Yosuke raises an eyebrow because really, dude? The sink's not even the worst of it.

“Sorry,” Souji mutters, dropping his hands. “I didn't know you were coming. I'll just—”

He pushes his hands into the muggy water—without gloves, which seems all manner of wrong. Yosuke crosses the room in two strides (luckily, as the floor _crunches,_ and he’s almost distracted because yes, there's a layer of spilled, uncooked rice under his feet) and grabs Souji's wrist.

Souji _flinches._ Okay, maybe Yosuke shouldn't go with the physical approach right now, but he's honestly worried about what might be in that sink—there could be knives hiding in there. Or like, cholera.

“Don't,” Yosuke says. “I mean, you don't need to bother. I've seen worse.”

Souji frowns at him. Because yeah, Yosuke's pretty sure “worse” than this doesn't exist outside of reality television. But he still tries to smile, says, “Hey, I mean it, I live with Teddie,” because jokes are what Yosuke does, and if he doesn't get Souji to smile or chuckle or look less like a walking corpse in the next few minutes he might literally scream.

Souji doesn't smile. But he does take his hands out of the water, so Yosuke counts it as a victory anyway.

“Sit down,” Yosuke tells him. “I'll get dinner. And uh, make us some tea.”

There are clean plates in the Dojima's kitchen somewhere, Yosuke is certain, but he can't seem to find any of them now. It looks like they'll be eating out of takeout boxes after all.

The teapot is easier. Water is water and teapots are teapots no matter whose house you're in, and it's a simple matter of unburying it from a stack of unread newspapers and setting it on the stove. Then Yosuke has a minor heart attack because _what if there's no tea?_ And he's not really sure why he's making tea in the first place, except that his mom has this thing about making tea every time guests are over, and especially every time something traumatic happens, and basically _tea_ is just an instinct at this point, but if there's no tea in the next cabinet Yosuke doesn't know what he'll do.

“Second cabinet.” Souji is lying on the couch, head on lump of shirts, eyes fixed on the wall. “On the left.”

Yosuke looks, and miracle of miracles, the small tin tucked inside is full of something suitably brew-able. He doesn't wonder how Souji knew what he was looking for. That's just one of those impossible things—even at his worst, Souji is still better than all the competition combined.

They eat on the couch, cross legged. It's awkward and full of bumped elbows and knees, because there's laundry heaped all around them like the elephant in the room, but Yosuke's not going to make Souji sit on the floor, not when Souji looks so strange and so _faded,_ taking tiny, perfect bites and not looking at his food as he eats. It's like he's been replaced by a perfect copy, a life-sized doll with no life in its eyes.

Yosuke picks at his own food. The air is so stifling Yosuke has to check the door and make sure the fog hasn't crept inside somehow, unnoticed. He wants the television to drone in the background, give him some excuse for his silence. He wants to find something to talk about, something happy, something that might put some color back in Souji's cheeks. All he can think about are terrible things or things so frivolous that bringing them up would be like making jokes at a funeral.

This feels like a funeral. Yosuke's only been to one, when he was just a kid for some relative he didn't even know, and it wasn't sad except that his mom kept crying, and he didn't know what he was supposed to do, and everything was waiting and boring and hushed voices in half-empty rooms. It's a disgustingly apt comparison. Yosuke hates himself for thinking it.

 _Nanako isn't dead_ , he reminds himself, because it's surprisingly hard to remember. The past few weeks have given him some kind of emotional whiplash, with all the ups and downs and sudden, horrifying stops. He never had time to really process that Nanako was gone in the first place. None of them had. And now she's safe, maybe, and she'll pull through, maybe, and he's trying to feel relief when he barely had time to be scared, and that's enough and it's not enough and it's _enough._

And the terrible thing, the horrible selfish thing, is that Yosuke really wants Souji right now. Not this _stranger_ —this quiet, hollowed-out, sleep-deprived shell wrapped around his best friend, but the real Souji—the guy who was so strong, so confident, who always knew just what to say and when to say it, who brought them together and kept them together and just, _fuck._ Fuck everything, he is too tired for this.

Souji's eating so slowly, so hesitantly, and frankly Yosuke's impressed he's putting in any effort at all. He's not sure he could do anything but lie on the floor if he were in Souji's shoes.

“Uh—” Yosuke starts. Souji looks up, and whatever he was going to say flies right out of his head. That's one of Souji's talents, making people forget what they were thinking, rearranging the whole world until everything is about _Souji_ and _Souji's_ opinions and _Souji's_ ideas and Yosuke would resent him for it if it wasn't unintentional. Souji's not in the spotlight because he wants to be—it's just who he is. Some people have that spark, that thing that turns heads and catches eyes and puts them front and center in the world, and some people don't. No point in denying the obvious.

“Yosuke...” Souji puts his food on the table in one small, elegant turn of his wrist. He turns on Yosuke with a stare so hard it makes Yosuke's skin prickle and spark. He squeezes the couch cushion—his palms are suddenly sweaty, his mouth suddenly parched.

“Why are you really here?” Souji asks. He asks like he does when Naoto's spurring him on for clues—quiet and cutting, expecting—no, _demanding_ —the truth. He's never turned that voice on Yosuke before tonight, before staring Nanako's _murderer_ in the face and saying, _“Something isn't right,”_ saying, _“Calm the hell down!”_ like it's easy.

Like _Yosuke's_ the weird one for wanting that bastard to pay.

“W-what're you talking about, man?” Yosuke says, and tries, tries to be casual. “I was just, y'know, in the neighborhood and, and I—”

Souji frowns. Yosuke shuts his mouth before he babbles himself into a corner. He can't even come up with an excuse. Souji will see through it before he even starts.

“I really can't hide from you, huh?”

Souji doesn't answer, barely nods his head, a silent _get on with it, Yosuke._

Yosuke runs a hand through his hair. “I—I guess I was worried.” Souji's expression changes, so fast and smoothly it's blink-and-miss, gone before Yosuke can puzzle it out. “After—after everything that happened, tonight and this month and... I just, I wanted to make sure you're okay. Uh... are you okay?”

Souji looks away. So abruptly Yosuke catches his breath. Souji's stare felt like a weight on his shoulders, and ripping it away so suddenly leaves him reeling.

“I'm fine,” Souji says, steadily.

“All right,” Yosuke says. “But... you know it'd be okay if you weren't, right?”

Souji doesn't glance at him, doesn't move his head. He's staring at the television, at the pink blanket, like he's trying to set fire to it. He's trembling, almost, with the fury he's holding inside.

“You're mad at me,” he says, and again it's that cool prosecutor voice.

“Yeah,” Yosuke says, only it comes out as a rasp. He clears his throat. “I am. I still don't—” he bites his tongue, bites back the nastiness waiting to spill out. “I don't know if we did the right thing,” he admits. “But I know, no matter what, we're in this together. I trust you, and I... I can't do it without you, leader.”

Souji makes a soft, sharp noise, like a punctured tire. He jerks away from Yosuke, neck bent and face down. All Yosuke can see is the back of his head, the slight, unsteady tremor of his shoulders.

“Souji?”

He doesn’t answer. Yosuke tries to scoot closer, but Souji just folds up, determined to hide his face. His shoulders are definitely shaking.

Is he... _crying?_

“Souji... are you...?”

“Shit.” Souji scrubs at his eyes. “ _Shit!_ ”

“Hey, shh.” Yosuke puts a hand on his back—it's not enough but it's all that feels safe, feels allowed. “It's okay, geez.”

Souji hunches in so tightly his forehead almost touches his knees. Yosuke waits for him to pull away or shrug off his touch, but he doesn't. He just winds up tighter and tighter, like a spring.

When he speaks, it's breathless, but bitter—volume to compensation for his lack of control. “Why are you being so nice to me?” he says, half-muffled by his knees. He sounds so small, so _raw._ Yosuke's never heard him like this before.

It's ridiculous. Souji—king of the noble and selfless act, a teenage prodigy, amateur detective, and team psychologist all in one, strong contender for World's Most Perfect Human Being—doesn't understand why someone would want to be nice to him. There are people who would kill to be in the _presence_ of someone this indestructibly perfect, much less to make them happy, to make them... less sad, anyway. Does Souji really not get this?

“We're friends,” Yosuke says. That should be all there is to it, shouldn't it?

Souji's breath hitches. “Are we?”

That's it. Yosuke swings his arm around Souji's shoulders, pulling him into an awkward hug. He rests his head on the top of Souji's before he can remind himself that that's not an acceptable manly way to hug someone. Right now, acceptable manly things can fuck right off.

“Dude, c'mon,” Yosuke says. “You've been there for me—for all of us, for months. Nothing's gonna change that. Definitely not some bastard like Namatame.” Yosuke sure of that. He's not letting Namatame ruin anything ever again. “Shit, partner. You should've told me. I would've—”

“Don't.” It's quiet, but the word feels like a slap. “Just. Don't.”

With nothing else to do, Yosuke settles in beside him. It takes a minute, but slowly Souji uncurls, leans into him, hides his face in Yosuke's collar. It should feel weird, to, well, to _hold_ him like this. And in a way it is, in a way it's terrifying because this is _Souji_ and he seems so _fragile_ and Yosuke's not supposed to be the tough one and _oh God he doesn't want to mess this up._ But it doesn't feel weird the way Yosuke thinks it should, the same way it didn't feel weird that day on the Samegawa with Souji's arms wrapped around his waist. It just feels... _normal._

Except that Souji's still crying. Really crying, like hard, ugly sobbing getting harder and harder with every passing second and no end in sight.

Yosuke wishes he knew how to be soothing, how to do something other than rub Souji's back and say “Hey” and “Shh” like it means a damn thing. This huge storm is being ripped right out of Souji's lungs and Yosuke doesn't even know what's wrong, really. He knows the rough outline—the shape of it, the sillhouette, the sharp, shocking gash that's struck right down the middle of the whole team, the whole world—but he doesn't understand, yet, what it is that's hurting.

It's just like Souji, really. Can't even be vulnerable without being an enigma about it. Sometimes, Souji feels less like a person and more like a patchwork of parts, like one of those weird paintings that's all blobs of disconnected color until you stand back far enough to see the picture. And Yosuke _hates_ himself so much, because he'd thought it a dozen times before but he'd never considered how exhausting it must be to be so many people in one human body.

People aren't paintings. They can't live with their hearts partitioned up inside. At some point, everything bleeds into everything else.

Souji shudders. It's mostly dry, bitter sobs at this point, heaving up from deep inside with a violent force. It's all Yosuke can do to hold on. There's snot running down Souji's face, smeared on his cheeks and Yosuke's shirt. It's shockingly undignified. Actually, it's kind of scary.

“S-sorry.” Yosuke can barely make out the words, Souji's just sort of breathlessly ranting between sobs. “I'm sorry, I'm sorry.”

“Hey, hey.” Yosuke squeezes him tighter, almost tugs him into his lap and it's weird how Souji just goes with it, doesn't put up a fight, just clings to him like a little kid. “You don't have to apologize. It's okay. Just let it out.”

Souji shuts his eyes. He puts his head on Yosuke's chest, pressing, and Yosuke can _feel_ it, the way his breaths slow, the way he starts putting all of his feelings back into those neat little labeled boxes that make him so wonderful at handling a crisis, except that this time the crisis is in his own head. Yosuke wishes there was a way for him to crawl inside Souji's brain and pick up the pieces with him.

“Okay,” Souji says, like he's putting down something insurmountably heavy. Yosuke thinks he might be, somehow. “ _Okay._ ”

Yosuke's still rubbing his back, which must be some instinct ingrained even deeper than _tea_ because Yosuke hadn't thought about it at all, just started doing it. He stills his hand, now, and Souji sits up, shifts out of Yosuke's lap and back onto the couch. Yosuke lets him go. Even though everything in him is screaming to pull him closer, he can tell that Souji needs space. The hugging thing would probably be too awkward without the horrible sobbing making it a necessity, anyway.

“I should, uh, get cleaned up,” Souji says. He's covering his face as if he's embarrassed for Yosuke to see him, as if he wasn't just dripping all over Yosuke's shirt a minute ago.

“Yeah,” Yosuke echoes. “Yeah, you should take a bath. I'll just tidy up a bit, here.”

Their takeout boxes have been knocked onto the floor, noodles strewn and staining the floor with soy sauce, their tea left abandoned and cold. Yosuke would be embarrassed about it except that it's just a drop in the bucket at this point, really.

Souji gives him another strange, pinching, almost worried look. Yosuke knows what he's going to say before he opens his mouth.

“You don't have to—”

“I know!” Yosuke sighs. “Yes, I know. Just go take your freaking bath, okay?”

The strange look doesn't leave, but Souji does. He slips off to the bathroom, his bare feet hardly making a sound on the floor.

(Did he always walk like that, or was it something he picked up while sneaking around Shadows?)

(Yosuke doesn't know. He probably never will.)

There's really too much mess for Yosuke to clean all of it. He's never been the neatest person to begin with, but he couldn't live with himself if he let Souji keep living like this. It just doesn't seem healthy. And what's gonna happen when Nanako-chan gets out of the hospital, huh? Is she gonna come home to this mess?

No way. Not if Yosuke has anything to do with it.

There are trash bags under the sink. It takes Yosuke a stupid amount of time to find them, but once he does he makes surprisingly quick work of the takeout boxes and empty cans filling up the kitchen. When he's finished, he's got two full trash bags plus the one already stuffed in the Dojima's bin. He lines them up against the kitchen wall. It doesn't seem right to just leave them out in the open, but he doesn't know where else to put them. It's not like he can stick them outside—at least 90% of Inaba's cat population lives in Souji's backyard, after all.

He does the dishes next. That's a little harder, because he has to reach into the swamp water that's taken residence in the kitchen sink. But somehow he avoids getting tetanus or the plague, and soon the stacks are mostly cleared away and drying, dripping, splayed out on every inch of free and dubiously-clean surface Yosuke can find. Which just reminds him of how much those surfaces need to be cleaned, too.

Yosuke's never liked cleaning. But after the amount of bullshit he's had to swallow today, it feels good to do something so simple and repetative. He falls into a rhythm, not thinking, not worrying, just scubbing and scrubbing and watching spotless, shining things appear under his hands. For the first time in a long time, it feels like he's making a difference.

Yosuke's bent double, chipping away at the stain on the stovetop with a damp dishrag, when his phone dings in his pocket.

>Mom: Will you be much later? Your father and I are getting worried.

Yosuke rolls his eyes. He starts to type a reply—

But comes up short. His phone clock blinks at him, blurry and pixilated. 11:38 PM.

He's been cleaning for nearly two hours.

Souji still hasn't come out of the bathroom.

He could be fine. He's probably fine. But if Yosuke listened to the rational voice in his head, he wouldn't be in this mess to begin with.

Yosuke sprints for the bathroom. Trips and almost kills himself on a corner of the living room table, but he gets back up and keeps going at breakneck pace because _what if Souji's dead?_ What if he slipped and he's been lying unconscious on the bathroom floor, all this time Yosuke's been doing his dishes while his best friend is _dying_ in the next room and—what if he's _dead_ —

Yosuke hammers on the door. There's nothing, no answer, no 'What is it?' or 'Hold on a minute' and Yosuke can't _breathe._

“I'm coming in!” he shouts, on the off-chance that this is a horrible misunderstanding, and throws the door open and almost off it's hinges. He's prepared for anything—for blood, for gore, for late-night television scenes of caution tape and _small community shocked by tragic teen death—_

What he's not prepared for is for everything to be completely fine.

Souji's up to his shoulders in the bath. His head is tilted towards the doorway, flat against his shoulder. His eyes are hooded, mouth parted. A thin line of drool glistens on his chin.

He's alive. He's alive, and he's asleep in the bath.

Well, crap.

Yosuke needs to shut the door. He is absolutely 100% convinced that he needs to shut the door and pretend this never happened. But Souji is asleep, and Yosuke can't let him sleep in the bath (what if the water cools off and he gets hypothermia or something?) and Yosuke also can't get any closer because Souji is definitely naked and locker rooms are one thing but seeing your best friend _naked_ while they're sleeping is a whole new level of _hell no—_

Souji stirs, ducking his chin just under the bathtub wall.

Yosuke has to wake him up. What if he slips under the water and drowns in his sleep? (Can that happen? Yosuke's pretty sure he saw that on the news once.)

He wastes a few more seconds trying to psychically will Souji to wake up on his own. Of course it doesn't work—Souji, for all his irritating, eerily-perfect observational skills, is not a mind-reader.

“Hey, partner,” Yosuke says. Souji doesn't move a muscle. And no wonder, Yosuke was practically whispering.

 _Man up, Yosuke._ “Hey, partner,” Yosuke repeats, louder, over the increasing thrum of his pulse. “C'mon, dude. Wake up.”

Souji's head dips a little lower. Crap.

Yosuke allows himself another minute to panic internally before taking a step into the bathroom. This is okay. This is not weird, or gross, or anything other than 100% normal friendship. He just needs to wake Souji up. And if that means getting a bit closer to him, that's okay. Souji will understand.

( _Oh please, please let Souji understand._ )

Souji must be really out of it. Yosuke's almost to the side of the tub and he still hasn't so much as flinched. Even calling his name gets no reaction.

Yosuke never pegged Souji for a heavy sleeper—not that he'd spent a lot of time thinking about Souji's sleeping habits, but if he had he would've thought that Souji slept lightly, always ready to wake for a phone call or an impending crisis. Maybe he was wrong. Maybe the secret to Souji's success is that he's always well-rested.

The truth is, there's a lot about Souji he still doesn't know. And it shouldn't bother him—the guy's allowed to have secrets, it's not like Yosuke doesn't have a few himself—but he never thinks about it except in times like this, and the realization always makes him weak in the knees and sick to his stomach. Souji's the best friend he's ever had. They're closer than—well, closer than anything Yosuke's ever had, ever thought he _could_ have, even. They're partners in crime and crime-fighting and everything in between.

But Souji has his secrets. And Yosuke's starting to worry that it isn't a matter of time. That no matter how patient and supportive and friendly he is, there are always going to be parts of Souji that are out of his reach.

It shouldn't bother him. But it does. Dammit, it does.

Yosuke kneels down. He's not sure why—he thinks that possibly he was going to try talking directly into Souji's ear, but now that he's right in front of Souji's face it's like his mind is blank. All he can think about is the piece of damp hair dripping down Souji's nose. Souji's hair is always so well-kept, so neat, even the slightlest strand out of place stands out like a sore thumb.

Souji's nose crinkles, and he snorts a bit in his sleep. It must be tickling him.

It would be so easy to reach out and brush it away.

Yosuke rubs his hands on his pants. His palms are sweaty, and his fingers feel sticky and slow. His breath is coming in these short puffs and he's not sure why he's freaking out except that suddenly it feels like he's answering the final true/false question on a test that could ruin his whole frickin' grade. _Reach out: yes/no?_

 _It's okay,_ Yosuke tells himself. Nothing to it. Nothing wrong or weird about it. Just moving a little bit of hair. Totally normal. He's just taking care of Souji. Like a friend would. It's fine.

He's careful, so careful, brain-surgery careful, just pushing the hair a little with the tip of his thumb. He's not touching Souji, just his hair, but it slides and suddenly the pad of his thumb is flush with Souji's skin.

Souji is shockingly warm, feverish. If it weren't for the hot bath Yosuke would be worried. As it is, the steam makes his skin soft, velvet to the touch. There's a trail of droplets, sweat or steam, leading down from his hairline. Yosuke catches it with his fingernail. He smears the water in an arc until it disappears into Souji's skin, until his thumb is level with Souji's cheek and his palm is cupping his jaw. His fingers run down, through his hair, across his ear, finding that little jut of Souji's jaw, he can feel his pulse, his fingers curl—

He brushes Souji's lip. Oh. _Oh._

Yosuke can't _breathe._

His lips are soft. A little chapped. Yosuke bites his own lips in sympathy. He should lend Souji some chapstick. He shouldn't—should—maybe—

Souji yawns.

Yosuke jumps up so hard he smacks his head into the shelf over the tub.

“ _Ow,_ fuck—!”

“Yosuke?” Souji blinks up at him, sleepy.

“You were asleep!” Yosuke shouts. “I was—I had to wake you up. Um. Y-you should go to bed.”

Souji makes a little sound, a low _mm._ He shuts his eyes again. For a horrible moment, Yosuke thinks he's fallen back asleep. But then he throws an arm over the side of the tub. Yosuke gets a glimpse of Souji's back emerging before he spins around so fast he sees spots.

He balls his fists to keep from covering his ears, reaching for his headphones—anything to block out the telltale sloshing and croak of the drain behind him, the knowledge that Souji is there and naked and probably wondering what the hell Yosuke is doing. Yosuke shouldn't be here, he should get out of the bathroom but it'd be awkward if he ran away now, right? It'd look like he was embarrassed. And he shouldn't be—this is normal guy stuff. Right?

“Where're my pants?” Souji mutters.

The offending clothes are resting by Yosuke's feet. Yosuke balls them up and tosses them over his shoulder without looking. “Uh, catch,” he says, belatedly.

Rustling. Yosuke tries not to breathe too loudly, make himself too obvious. He's pretty sure he's flushed all the way to his ears though, and his heart is hammering like it's about to stop, and okay, he's kind of freaking out again. What the hell is wrong with him?

Souji taps him on the shoulder. Yosuke almost melts into the floor.

“You can look,” Souji tells him, and Yosuke is way, way too exhausted to tell if Souji's making fun of him.

“Right, yeah,” Yosuke says. “Let's—let's get you to bed, okay?”

His attempt at cheer seems to fall on deaf ears. Souji just blinks at him.

“C'mon.” Yosuke gestures out the door. Souji stares at him like Yosuke's speaking in tongues. Yosuke tries not to shudder. Even half-asleep, Souji still has this way of looking at you like he can see everything you most want to hide.

Finally, slowly, Souji pads out of the bathroom. Yosuke might flinch just a little as Souji passes, their shoulders almost brushing.

Yosuke follows him out. Souji is now standing in the hallway. He looks smaller now, somehow, like he shrunk in the wash. Bare feet poke out from the cuffs of his sweatpants, and his hair is matted, dripping. He examines a hole in the elbow of his shirt like it's engrossing. For someone who was just asleep, he's clearly in no hurry to go to bed.

If Yosuke didn't know better, he'd say that it looks like Souji's avoiding going upstairs.

...huh.

“Souji?”

Souji picks at his shirt, widening the hole.

“Don't you wanna go to bed? You're exhausted.”

Souji sort of shrugs, or maybe sighs. He rips out a thread with his nails, then curls it around his fingers. Souji never fidgets like this. He must be really upset.

Yosuke thinks about the trash bags in the kitchen.

“Is your bed made up? I can help with that, if it's not.”

Souji shakes his head. Yosuke can't tell if he's answering, or if he's even listening at all.

Yosuke touches Souji's shoulder. Souji stiffens. Well, at least Yosuke has his attention.

“Souji?”

It's soft. As soft as Yosuke knows how to speak. Maybe it's stupid, patronizing or infuriating, to talk to someone like Souji in a voice Yosuke would usually only use around small children or skittish pets. But Yosuke can't help it. He's afraid that if he talks too loudly Souji might clam up or start crying and _ugh._ Yosuke wishes he knew what's wrong. More than that, he wants to know what he can do to make it right.

“What's the problem, huh? Aren't you tired?”

Souji is staring hard enough to bore a hole in the floor. “...it's cold,” he says, quietly.

“Huh?”

“It's cold. Upstairs.” Souji points, like Yosuke's forgotten where the stairs are. “I can't sleep.”

“Oh, seriously? That's it?” Yosuke didn't mean to say it out loud—Souji hunches inward and Yosuke feels like a dick. Well, really, it's Souji's fault, acting like something was really wrong. “Let's see what we can do about that, okay partner?”

Souji doesn't answer, but Yosuke thinks he uncurls a bit at the familiar nickname.

Souji's bedroom is in a much better state than the downstairs. The contrast is honestly kinda eerie. It looks almost exactly like the last time Yosuke was here, in—what was it? September? The only differences are the clothes spilling out of the dresser drawer and the unmade futon in the middle of the floor. There are sheets on it, tangled and used, but somehow Yosuke can tell that it hasn't been slept in for weeks.

He finds some extra blankets in a closet. He shakes the dust and the scent of disuse off of them and spreads them over the futon. He plumps up the pillow and tucks the sheets as smooth as the display beds at Junes. He even turns up the heater. All the while, Souji watches him from the corner. If it were any other situation, Yosuke would be annoyed at the way he's standing there, not helping, probably judging everything that Yosuke's doing. But Souji looks so sick and small that Yosuke can't bring himself to be mad. Honestly, if Yosuke wasn't here to do this for him, he'd probably just fall asleep on the couch downstairs again.

Yosuke pats the pillow once last time, then sits back on his heels. “How's this?” he asks. “A little better?”

Souji crawls under the sheets. He pulls them up all the way over his chin, burrows his head into the pillow until only the smallest strip of his face is visible. “...it's fine,” he mumbles.

“Cool,” Yosuke says, but Souji's already shut his eyes. Yosuke waits a moment more before standing up. “Uh—”

Souji cracks open an eye. “Hm?”

“Do you... is there anything else you need?”

It's ridiculous. Beyond stupid. But Yosuke can't keep the hopeful note out of his voice, can't stop himself from feeling something almost good, because everything is awful and Souji is exhausted and the world is going down the toilet but for once, for tonight, for a moment, Yosuke got to do something _useful._

He doesn't want to let that feeling go.

Souji shuts his eyes again. “I'm fine.”

“Okay. Um. See you tomorrow, I guess.”

Yosuke walks to the door, careful to get the light as he does. In the darkness the room seems even emptier, shapes looming large and unfamiliar in the thin light from the curtains, without even the wind to break the silence. Yosuke opens the door.

“Yosuke!”

“What?” He steps back from the doorway. “What's wrong? Do you need something?”

Souji is sitting up in bed, once-tucked blankets askew, something wild in his shoulders and intense in his stare. Yosuke wishes there was light—wishes he could see what was on Souji's face. Though, knowing Souji, it's probably nothing Yosuke could decipher.

On second thought, he's grateful for the dark. It's the only thing keeping Souji from seeing his own expression. There's a million things he wants to say—questions he wants to ask, jokes he wants to tell, things that might make Souji smile or help him understand what Souji is feeling or... anything. They pass through his head, but none of them come out.

“...goodnight,” Souji says, quietly.

Yosuke bites his tongue. _That's not it,_ he wants to say. Souji didn't shout like that, like something was burning him up inside, just to tell Yosuke goodnight. He wants something. Yosuke would give it to him—whatever it is, he would give it, if Souji would just freaking _ask._

But that wouldn't be Souji's style, would it.

Souji's not like him. He doesn't get desperate and confess all his secrets to anyone, everyone who'll listen—desperate for someone to say _it's okay, I understand, you're okay._ Souji deals with things on his own. He doesn't give up parts of himself like a one day sale at Junes—like the more he gives of himself, the better he feels. Souji's too mature for that. Or maybe immature.

If Souji doesn't want to tell him, there's nothing Yosuke can do to change that. He should be getting home, anyway.

“Goodnight, partner,” he says, hoping beyond hope that his disappointment doesn't show in his voice.

Souji's already lying back down. Maybe he didn't hear him at all.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> So. I'm writing a multi-chapter fic. Never thought I'd be doing that.
> 
> If you wanna see where I'm going with this, leave a comment, maybe? Comments are good motivators.


	2. Are We Different?

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> The day they catch Adachi is bitterly cold. In more ways than one.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Whew! Well, this took me longer than I thought it would. It could probably use more editing, but if I spend any more time on it I'm going to end up a nervous wreck.
> 
>  **Chapter features:** Yosuke angst, Teddie's unfounded accusations, onions, cat slippers, math poetry, unhelpful manga, and ludicrous amounts of hand-holding.
> 
> This chapter's title is brought to you by another Priscilla Ahn song!

They don't talk about it.

Not that there's anything _to_ talk about, necessarily. Still: they don't talk about it. Souji doesn't thank Yosuke for coming over. Yosuke doesn't ask if he's sleeping better or if he took out the trash bags in the kitchen. They question Namatame. They visit Nanako. Teddie returns just as suddenly as he left.

The case, the year, school—it all moves on like nothing happened.

Maybe nothing happened. Yosuke's starting to wonder if he actually did go over to Souji's house that night, or if it was some kind of crazed fog-induced fever dream. But no, he definitely didn't dream that lecture his mom gave him about coming home after midnight, or that part where she almost confiscated his phone.

Maybe he just dreamed the part where Souji cried. That couldn't have been real.

It reminds Yosuke of those first days after they found the TV world. Between the confusion and fear and fighting his Shadow and suddenly being part of a murder investigation, everything took on this weird surreal sheen. School became impossible, gossip uninteligable, all the things he used to care about felt distant or trivial. How could he focus on any of that every day stuff, when there was a whole other world he was determined to save?

The feeling went away, eventually. The TV world stopped being terrifying and strange and turned into something almost routine, and life went on and continued to do exactly what it always had, and... somehow it just worked out. Thanks to Souji, probably. Souji was a constant in all parts of his life—there in the TV world, giving orders and backing Yosuke up; there in the real world, planning study parties and sharing lunch on the roof.

But now Souji is the problem. Because Souji is back to being stoic and brave and like nothing could ever trip him up, but Yosuke keeps waiting for the facade to slip. When Souji is calmly grilling Namatame for his story or sitting silent at Nanako's bedside or reviewing his notes for midterms (midterms!), Yosuke just keeps picturing him hunched over his knees, asking, _“Why are you being so nice to me?”_

Yosuke still doesn't know how to answer. Mostly because he still doesn't know why Souji asked.

He's making things awkward, he knows, getting self-conscious and second-guessing Souji's orders and avoiding time alone with him, and really he needs to just accept that what happened _happened_ and move on. Souji certainly has. He just can't get the images out of his head, the sensations off his skin.

(Souji asleep in the bath, lips soft and chapped—)

Yosuke turns up the music in his headphones. He pounds the last few Shadows so thoroughly that Souji makes him sit the next fight out.

He hadn't thought it possible after Rise's claustrophobic nightclub and the confusing maze of the video game, but of all the places they've been in, Yosuke thinks he hates Magatsu Inaba the worst. The shifting red sky gives him a headache and every step takes him into piles of trash or tangled lines of caution tape. More than any of the other's, Adachi's world feels _hostile._ But it doesn't make Yosuke want to run out. Far from it. It makes him _pissed._

Life is screwed up enough without assholes like this making everything worse.

He has talked to Souji on his own, once. After the first night they spent in Magatsu Inaba, tearing through Shadows and adjusting for the sudden spike in the strength of their foes. They didn't make much progress, and Yosuke was frustrated and still furious from the day before, and as they seperated on the Junes rooftop he caught Souji's arm and asked him, point blank, what he planned to do when they caught Adachi.

Souji frowned at him, that little crease in his brow that said, 'this is unexpected and I'm reevaluating my assumptions about you.' “We take him to the police,” he said, slowly, like Yosuke was an idiot for asking.

“Yeah, okay.” Yosuke drummed his fingers on the grip of his knife, resisting the urge to scream or run or grab Souji by the shoulders and shake. “But what if they won't take him? What if the charges don't stick?”

Namatame was probably going to get out of the kidnapping charges. At least, the only one that'd hold up would be Nanako's. Yosuke doesn't know how he feels about that.

But he knows how he'd feel about Adachi running free after this.

“We'll deal with that later,” Souji said. It was infuriating. It was everything Yosuke didn't want to hear.

“You can't just say that!” Yosuke said. “We need to have a plan, a—you can't just wing it!”

_You can't do this by yourself. You can't cut me out, treat me like a kid and make all the tough choices without me._

They argued until finally Souji brushed him off, said he needed to get home and they were both tired and can't we talk about this later? And he sounded so exhausted Yosuke didn't have the heart to press him.

Yosuke went home and nagged at Teddie and slept like shit and bit his pillow in his sleep, tossing and turning over how much he hated everything in the world.

He's started to dream in red and black. He's had dreams about the TV before, but nothing like this. Every night it's the same. He's alone in the TV, chasing Adachi. They're lost in this maze, Adachi always a step ahead of him, and Yosuke is tangled in tape and tripping over his own feet. And then Adachi is right there, and it's just like when he confessed to killing Saki-senpai, except that this time he's confessing to killing Souji. And Yosuke knows that isn't right, but he's scared that it might be, and he wakes sweaty and panicking and fumbling for his phone beside his bed.

>Souji: are you free tomorrow? I want to make more progress in the TV.

Yosuke doesn't bother replying. Of course he's free. He's always free when it comes to Souji.

***

The day they catch Adachi is bitterly cold. Yosuke's fists are balled in his jacket pockets as they watch Adachi get loaded into the back of the ambulance. He goes easily, without protest. Yosuke's almost disappointed. He wants to watch that bastard wail and gnash his teeth and tear at his bonds and comprehend, finally, the horror of everything he's done. But this Adachi is a pale imitation of the cold killer he claimed to be. He's pathetic.

Yosuke digs his nails into his palms. You'd think that catching Saki's killer and defeating the lord of the fog (or whatever that freaky eyeball thing was) would satisfy him. Instead, he just feels... empty.

Someone jostles his shoulder. Yosuke looks up, expecting Chie or Teddie. He meets Souji's eyes instead.

“We did it,” Souji says, seriously, and yeah, duh, that's completely freaking obvious, but somehow... that's exactly what Yosuke needed to hear.

Yosuke laughs despite himself. “Yeah, partner. We did.”

Souji smiles. It's his rarest smile—that little, near-imperceptible flicker of his lips, small and shy like he doesn't even realize he's doing it. It's the same expression he wore when Yosuke shook his hand and told him that they were definitely going to solve the case, together—like he couldn't believe his luck. Like just having Yosuke on his side was everything he'd ever wanted.

Souji takes his hand. Yosuke jumps at the touch, but it's a small thing—no one sees, no one's watching them, Souji's looking on as the ambulance turns a corner and speeds out of sight.

Souji's got amazing hands. Soft and strong and long, elegant fingers that wrap around Yosuke's like Yosuke's own stubby, clumsy hands are something precious, something worth holding. He squeezes, just a little, like a confirmation that yes, he did this on purpose, and Yosuke wants to squeeze back but he thinks his brain has short-circuited. He can count on one hand the number of times that Souji has touched him without Yosuke being the one to initiate it—all he can think of right now is that day on the Samegawa with Souji's arms around his waist.

“Thank you,” Souji says, and Yosuke mumbles something, maybe 'you too,' maybe nothing at all, before Souji lets go.

It's a freezing cold day. They stand under the new sunlight and Chie, Yukiko, everyone is shivering as they whoop and cheer their victory to the skies. But Yosuke's cheeks are hot, and his breaths are short, and he thinks about taking off his jacket because there's some kind of furnace trapped under his skin.

He bunches his fists in his pockets. The material is rough, and nothing like Souji's hands.

***

Yosuke walks home along the Samegawa. It's not really the right direction, but he's not in any hurry to get home. They should have a party, a real investigation-ending party this time, but no one thought about party plans when they were desperately tearing through Adachi's twisted mind or sitting at Nanako's bedside. Maybe they'll celebrate after Nanako gets out of the hospital. Things are looking good for her.

Things are looking _great._

Yosuke's not sure how this happened. How anger and emptiness and dissatisfaction dissolved so easily into this weird, giddy fluttering in his chest. It has to do with Souji, he knows, but how? How is it that Souji always makes him so freaking happy?

He shouldn't question it. That's Yosuke's problem—he's always thinking too much about things he shouldn't, paying no attention to the things he should. He should just let himself be happy for once and not worry about anything else.

They did it. They won. What more is there to say?

“Yosuke!”

He freezes. Souji is running full-tilt down the road right for him. Yosuke should probably run to meet him half-way, but his feet are stuck and he's suddenly scared.

“What's going on?” he asks. “What's wrong?”

Souji stops a few feet from him. He grips his knees, huffing and panting. How far did he have to run to get this out of breath? All the way from the shopping district?

He shakes his head. “Nothing. I just... I had to... talk to you.”

“Geez. Send me a text next time, dude.” Yosuke guides him over the grass. “Sit down, you're making me tired just looking at you.”

Souji settles, stretching his knees out on the ground. His breaths slow, and Yosuke gives him a nudge with his shoulder.

“What's up? You sure everything's okay?”

“Yeah.” Souji nods. “Everything's perfect. That's... actually, that's why I wanted to see you.”

Yosuke tries to catch his eye, but Souji's doing that thing where he won't look at him. Instead, he stares at some point across the river, or maybe above it, in the sky.

“Yeah?” Yosuke says, because Souji's been silent for at least another minute, digging his fingers into the frozen grass.

Souji ducks his chin, just a little, so he's peering up through his eyelashes. To someone who didn't know him, they might think he was glaring, but Yosuke knows that Souji sets his jaw like that when he's thinking, and he stares into space like that when he's uncertain, and when he's really, truly furious, his face doesn't look like anything at all.

“I'm making dinner,” he says.

“Uh, okay.” Yosuke would normally sigh or roll his eyes at Souji's non-sequiturs, but he's feeling so good today he might as well play along. “What're you making?”

“I'm not sure. I went to Junes yesterday, so there's a lot of things I could...”

“Uh huh.” Yosuke shifts onto his side to see Souji better. Is it the twilight painting pink into his cheeks, or their conversation? “You know, I've missed eating your lunches.”

“You do?” Now Souji looks at him. He seems genuinely startled.

Yosuke laughs. “Of course. I mean, half the time I forget to bring lunch anyway, but... you're a good cook.”

Souji drops his eyes just as suddenly as he met Yosuke's. His hands clench in the earth.

“Yosuke,” he says. “I...”

“What?” Yosuke says. “Just spit it out, man.”

Souji bites his lip. “I... could make dinner for you, if you...”

“Huh?” Yosuke blinks. “Hold up, do you...” it takes him a minute to translate 'Souji speak' into a legible sentence. “Are you asking me over for dinner?”

“If you want,” Souji says, which isn't really an answer but is probably the best Yosuke's going to get.

Yosuke laughs harder than he probably should. It's not really that funny, it's just... _Souji_ , man. “Why didn't you just ask?”

Souji actually looks embarrassed. “Do you want to or not?”

“Yes, dumbass.” Yosuke shakes his head. “You are so _weird._ ”

But then, Yosuke's the one who has to stand up first, just for the excuse to help Souji to his feet.

(If he holds onto Souji's hand a little longer than necessary, well... that's nobody's business.)

***

Yosuke's a little nervous. Not that there's anything to be nervous _about_ —not compared to catching a killer and saving Inaba from certain destruction—but it's been so long since he and Souji got to hang out. No one else, no investigation stuff to get in the way, just the two of them, alone, at Souji's house...

The last time they've done anything like that was the night after Namatame. And that was... Yosuke doesn't even want to think about that.

He runs his hands over the pulls of his dresser. He told Souji that he needed to change out of his uniform, which he probably did, it was sweaty and gross and not exactly something he wanted to spend the rest of the evening in, but now he's got the troubling question of just what to wear _instead._

Yosuke opens a drawer at random and scowls. This is the problem with Souji—he always looks so effortless and cool no matter if he's wearing a school jacket or swim trunks, and all of Yosuke's attempts at style just look pathetic in comparison. But he's got to try. He can't let Souji show him up like this.

And of course, all of this would be easier if Teddie would just go away.

“But where are you _going?_ ” Teddie wails, bouncing on Yosuke's bed.

“I told you, it's none of your business!” Yosuke knows better than to tell him the truth. If he says that he's going to Souji's and _still_ won't let Teddie come, Teddie will have a fit. “It's not a big deal, okay?”

Teddie crosses his arms. “It is too a big deal! You're trying to look nice! You never try to look nice!”

“Hey, shut it! I do too!”

“Do not!”

Yosuke slams the drawer shut in frustration. Teddie is giving him a new appreciation for all those years as an only child.

“I'm just going to meet up with someone for dinner,” he says. “It is _not_ a big deal, I just don't want to show up looking like a slob. Now will you drop it?”

Teddie stops bouncing. He kicks his feet contemplatively.

“You put stuff in your hair,” he says, like this is significant.

“It's not _stuff_ , it's hair gel,” Yosuke says. “I'll show you how to use it sometime if you stop pestering me.”

“Ooh!” Teddie perks up, and it's like he's never been mad at anyone in his life. “Amazing! I've always wanted to style my silky fur!”

One of these days Yosuke is going to have to explain the difference between 'fur' and 'human hair.' Or maybe he can make Souji do it. Souji is much better at handling Teddie's... Teddie-ness.

Yosuke scrubs a hand through his hair. He's given up on ever getting it to lie flat, but at least he can try for 'artfully spiked' as opposed to 'eternally bedhead.' Yet another way that Souji's always showing him up.

In the end, Yosuke settles on a clean, orange shirt and dark jeans that are a little short in the leg but don't have any holes or stains. Maybe it's not something you'd see on a magazine cover, but Yosuke feels pretty good about it.

“Wow, Yosuke,” Teddie says. He's now lying on Yosuke's bed with his head propped on his hands. “You look good.”

Yosuke tugs a strand of hair out of his eyes. “Yeah, whatever,” he mutters, and is absolutely _not_ pleased with himself, at all.

He shoves a tube of chapstick in his pocket. For reasons.

“See you later, Teddie,” he says.

“Bye!” Teddie waves. “Have fun with your—” he gasps. “Yosuke!”

Yosuke freezes, one arm in his jacket. “What?”

“You're going out _to dinner._ ” Teddie says, aghast, like Yosuke just confessed to some huge crime.

“Yeah, so?”

Teddie puts on what Yosuke thinks of as his 'detective bear' face. “You're going to _dinner,_ and you're wearing _nice clothes._ ” He points a finger right in Yosuke's face. “You are going to _score!_ ”

Yosuke really needs to stop letting Rise loan Teddie those dumb romance manga.

“Dude, no.” He bats Teddie's finger away from his face. “I'm just hanging out with... someone.”

“Who?” Teddie demands. “If you were just hanging out, wouldn't you tell me? It's because you've stolen some poor girl's heart, isn't it?”

Put like that, it does sound kind of suspicious...

“I just don't want you to feel left out,” Yosuke hedges.

Teddie looks shocked. “Of course I feel left out! Yosuke has bewitched some poor maiden and I still haven't scored with _anyone!_ ” Teddie claps a hand to his chest in anguish. “Is it Yuki-chan? You've seduced poor Yuki-chan, haven't you?”

“No, ugh.” Yosuke shudders internally at the thought of what Chie would do to him if he ever got close to Yukiko. “Seriously, you've got it all wrong—”

“Well who is it, then? Rise-chan? Chie-chan? That nice lady from the produce department?”

“Dude, she's like thirty!” Teddie cocks his head. Apparently age wasn't something he considered when hitting on girls. “And no! It's not any of the girls!”

Teddie thinks about this.

“...is it Kanji?” he asks.

“No! Wha—of course it's not _Kanji_ , what the hell?”

Yosuke should never have opened his mouth. He can _see_ Teddie latching his claws into the idea now that Yosuke's gotten flustered.

“It is, isn't it!” Teddie claps his hands. “You're _in love_ with _Kanji!_ ”

Yosuke lunges. Unfortunately the little shit has good reflexes and all Yosuke ends up tackling is a lamp and a set of CDs.

“ _Ow_ , dammit—you little—!”

Yosuke tries to kick himself free of the lamp cord. Teddie watches him struggle and then, with his gentlest touch, pats Yosuke's knee.

“You don't have to be embarrassed,” he says sagely. “The heart wants what the heart wants, after all.”

“I'm gonna kill you,” Yosuke growls. “I'm gonna _wring your little neck—_ ”

“Don't worry! Your secret's safe with me.” Teddie pantomimes locking his lips and throwing away the key. “See? Safe.”

Yosuke stops fighting. He throws back his head in defeat and clocks himself on the corner of his desk.

“Oh, friggin' hell...”

His life _sucks._

Teddie is now petting his back. Damn, this kid has no sense of personal space. Yosuke puts his head in his hands.

“Teddie,” he says. “I'm _not_ in love with Kanji. I'm going to Souji's. That's it.”

Teddie stops. “You're going to Sensei's?” His voice is shocked, a little trembly. “Without me?”

Yosuke sighs.

“Yes. I just want to spend some time with him— _just_ him, alone. Just for tonight. Got it?”

Teddie is silent.

“You can come with me next time, okay?” Yosuke hopes Teddie doesn't understand the pleading in his voice. When Teddie still doesn't reply, Yosuke looks up. He expects Teddie to be pouting or glaring, but instead he's staring at the ground, a strange, focused look on his face—almost like his detective face, but quieter, less theatrical.

“ _Just_ Sensei...” he murmurs. He shakes his head. “Is it normal to spend time with _just_ one person, Yosuke?”

“Uh, I guess?” Yosuke says, but Teddie doesn't seem to be listening.

“It seems lonely,” Teddie says. “I thought it was 'the more the merrier.'”

“Well, yeah, sometimes that's true,” Yosuke admits. He sits up more, shifting his legs into a position less likely to cramp. “But sometimes it's nice to spend time with just one person.”

“Even when you aren't scoring?” Teddie asks.

Yosuke resists the urge to roll his eyes. Teddie seems to be taking this conversation somewhat seriously, he should take the chance to impart some knowledge on the dumb bear. “Yeah. And can you drop the 'scoring' thing? You don't even know what it means.”

“I do too!” Teddie crosses his arms. “It means 'to win someone's heart,' doesn't it?”

Yosuke groans. “No, it doesn't. And who told you that?”

_It better not be—_

“Rise-chan,” Teddie says.

_Dammit._

“I need to have a talk with her,” Yosuke grumbles. “She's a bad influence on you, you know that?”

Teddie shakes his head. “No way! Rise-chan is the only one who talks about the important stuff!”

Yosuke doesn't even want to imagine what Teddie would think of as 'important.' “Ugh, whatever. Can you get this freaking lamp off of me?”

With Teddie's help, Yosuke manages to get himself unburied. His hair's kind of a loss, though.

“Ted, stop.” Yosuke bats Teddie's hands away from his head. “It's fine, just leave it!”

“But it was so nice before!” Teddie sighs. “I guess some things are just not meant to be.”

_Yeah, tell me something I don't know._

***

So, the good news is Yosuke's no longer a little nervous. Bad news? That's because he's freaking out. A lot.

He wants to blame Teddie. Actually, he _can_ blame Teddie—if the dumb bear hadn't started getting all weird Yosuke could've left ten minutes earlier and at least a few degrees calmer. But his problem isn't limited to getting pissed at some unfounded accusations. Dammit, he doesn't even know what his problem is. That's the _problem._

He scuffs his feet against the porch. His toes are literally freezing—the streetlights are coming on and the thermometer's dropping by the minute, but every time he starts to raise his hand towards Souji's front door his heart does this awful squeeze and he has to measure his breaths just to get it back to beating.

He must just be tired. It's been a long day—confusing and exhausting, full of all kinds of feelings and fights and just... weird shit. He kicked a _giant floating eyeball_ in the ass, he's entitled to some confusion, okay?

But see, when Yosuke's confused he wants to talk to Souji. But right now talking to Souji is the thing that's freaking him out, so he's kind of stuck in this recursive loop. He's stuck, literally freezing to Souji's porch, and at this rate he's never gonna figure this out and Souji's going to find his dumbass body glued to his front step tomorrow morning. _Shit._

Yosuke digs his fingers into his scalp. He should've let Teddie fix his hair. He should've worn something nicer. Dammit, he should've brought a gift. Souji's making him dinner and Yosuke doesn't have anything to give in return but gratitude.

Dammit. Damn everything, this is getting him nowhere. _Just knock. Just knock, you idiot!_

In the end, he doesn't knock. He does, however, punch Souji's door, too light for the hinges to rattle but probably hard enough to bruise. Yosuke ducks his fist behind his back as Souji appears, squinting, through a crack of light.

“Yosuke?”

“H-hey.” Yosuke tries to replace his anxious look with a smile. “Thanks for, uh, inviting me—”

Souji pulls the door wider. Yosuke's heart stutters and stops.

“You took a while,” Souji says. He's shivering a little, his breath clouding the air above the porch.

“Yeah,” Yosuke says, barely aware of what he's saying. “I uh—I didn't know this was gonna be a pajama party, partner.”

Souji looks down at himself. He tugs at his collar as if he's only just realized he's wearing sweatpants, an apron, and—slippers with cat ears on them? Half the time Souji looks like he stepped right off a magazine cover, and the other half like he got dressed in the dark and put on Nanako's clothes by mistake.

“You said you wanted to change into something comfortable,” Souji says. He eyes Yosuke's jeans in a way that makes Yosuke have to clear his throat.

“I meant something that wasn't covered in Shadow goo,” Yosuke says. “You know we kinda smelled like a sewer?”

“Oh.” Souji shuffles his feet. Yosuke doesn't like the way the slippers pout at him, ears drooping. “I... understand.”

“It's fine.” Yosuke breaks eye contact with Souji's shoes. “I just wasn't expecting...”

“Are you sure? I could change—”

“No, no! It's fine. If you're fine with it, then it's fine. Uh.”

“Okay.”

They've been talking for two minutes and already things are this awkward. Yosuke's really starting to wish the giant eyeball had finished them off.

“Do you—” Souji starts.

“Yes!” Yosuke blurts. “I mean, _yes_ , I—can I come in? Of course I can come in, you invited me, uh, let's—let's just get off the porch.”

It takes Souji two tries to work the doorknob. Poor guy must be freezing. He shivers again as Yosuke claps his back and pushes past him into the house.

Yosuke would never admit it to Souji's face, but he has to steal his courage before going in. After what he saw two weeks ago (was it really only two weeks? It feels like months) he's got every right to expect the worst. So he's surprised, pleasantly, when he steps into Souji's house and finds it bright, and warm, and clean in the way he's come to associate with Souji—cluttered but cared for. Yosuke tries to think of a way to compliment it that wouldn't sound like a backhanded critique, but all he manages is, “Man, it's _warm_ in here,” which doesn't really say anything anyway.

He shucks his coat. He starts to wad it up by his shoes only for Souji to take it out of his hands. “Here,” he says, and hangs it up on a hook that Yosuke didn't realize was there.

“Oh, uh. Thanks.” Yosuke flashes a smile, but Souji's already rounding the corner out of sight.

The Dojima kitchen is pretty tight with two people in it any day of the week, especially when one of those people is terminally clumsy and has no idea where to put their hands. Yosuke always tried to avoid standing around there even when Souji wasn't cooking—he's not big on small spaces and anyway what if someone needed something and he got in the way?

Right now, he's pretty sure he couldn't stand in there if he wanted to.

“Whoa,” Yosuke says. “So, uh, I guess you decided what to cook.”

Which is everything in the refrigerator, by Yosuke's guess. There's two pots and a frying pan on the stove, all stewing with something, the oven's on and cooking something that smells heavy and meaty—what the hell—and basically the whole counter is devoted to cutting boards and precariously-placed knives.

“It's not as involved as it looks,” Souji says, stirring a pot and checking the temperature of some kind of frying oil at the same time.

“Uh huh.” Yosuke really doubts that. “Still, you didn't need to go through all this trouble...”

Souji sort of shrugs, like he disagrees but doesn't want to talk about it. He checks the oven. The smell that wafts up is definitely roasting meat.

“You can watch TV while you wait,” Souji says, shutting the door again. “If you want.”

This is the kind of sentence Yosuke hates. If it were anyone else, he'd know that this means “Yosuke, stop being a nuisance and get out of my way,” but because it's _Souji_ , what it actually means is probably exactly what he said. Yosuke never thought it'd be possible for someone to be so honest that they're confusing, but then he also never thought it'd be possible for someone to stick their hand through a television, so. Souji is full of surprises.

“Actually,” Yosuke says, “I'd like to help.”

Souji glares at him. _Glares_ isn't really the word, but it's the look he gives Yosuke when he gives an order in battle, like, _“I am in control of the situation and your life depends on what I have to say.”_

“I'm making you dinner,” Souji says, firmly.

“Oh, c'mon, partner.” Yosuke can't help the whining note that creeps into his voice, even if it makes him feel like he's talking to his mother. “I feel stupid just standing around like this. Give me something to do.”

Souji's stare fractures into something a little less stern. “You really want to?”

Yosuke throws up his hands—and nearly takes out a cabinet, but who's counting. “Why would I ask if I didn't?”

Souji doesn't have an answer. He thrusts a cutting board at Yosuke. Yosuke has just enough time to take it before he tosses him something round and papery—an onion, just like the ones they sell at Junes.

Yosuke flips the vegetable in his hands. Huh. He's stocked them a thousand times, but... he's never actually cut one of these before.

Maybe this wasn't a good idea.

It takes him a stupid amount of time to peel the damn thing, but peeling turns out to be the easy part when he gets to the chopping. His eyes sting. He can barely even see what his hands are doing through the blurry vision and the urge to blink. It feels like a punishment job, like the sort of thing he'd have to do after “forgetting” to clean the food court bathroom. And by the way Souji keeps sending him glances, he's clearly expecting Yosuke to give up quickly.

Yeah right. Yosuke blinks furiously, shredding the onion into shapes roughly square and debateably even. Like hell is he going to admit defeat to a damn root vegetable. Eventually, Souji comes to stand over Yosuke's shoulder. “Those pieces are too large,” he points. “And don't hold your knife like that. Slice, don't stab.” He puts a hand on Yosuke's wrist.

Yosuke brings his knife down so hard it almost slips through his fingers. “Don't you have something to stir?” he snaps.

Souji retracts his hand. There's something cool in his expression that makes Yosuke bite his tongue.

“No, I don't,” he says. “I need the onions.”

Yosuke pushes the cutting board at him. “Yeah, I should—I'll just get out of your way.”

Souji moves. It's not much, but it's just enough to keep Yosuke pinned against the counter. “You're doing well,” he says. “You just need practice.”

Yosuke swallows. They're so close together he can almost feel the words rumble their way through Souji's chest.

Souji takes his wrist again. “Let me help.”

It's not fair. It's impossible to say no when Souji is _looking_ at him like that.

Souji keeps his hand on Yosuke's, guiding his knife through in smooth, professional slices. The pieces turn out more even than Yosuke's hacking attempts, but Yosuke still feels like this is dangerous—he keeps jumping, and their shoulders keep knocking, and Souji is so distracting, his head bent like that and his hair falling down...

The knife jolts in Yosuke's hand.

“Sorry,” Souji mutters, but Yosuke honestly couldn't say which of them had lost their grip. “I... maybe I should just let you do this.”

“No,” Yosuke says, “no, look, there's not that much left...”

Yosuke reaches across to catch Souji's wrist, but Souji's already pulling away so he ends up taking Souji's hand instead.

 _Oh._ Souji's really warm. And a little sweaty. Or maybe that's just Yosuke, it's hard to tell, but... man, he's got great calluses. And soft palms. And... okay. _Okay._ Souji's lips part. A silent _oh_ that echoes down to those damn cat slippers. Yosuke shivers, this weird sort of tingle that zips through his fingers and out his feet, his toes are twisted in his socks and he's leaning in, leaning like he wants Souji to catch him. Souji's pressed into the counter, now, shoulders squeezed like he wants to be small, head ducked, his eyes flicking down Yosuke's face and Yosuke feels— _fuck._ His heart stutters, his throat chokes.

_Say something!_

It's not directed at Souji, or even at himself. He just needs _something_ , anything, a distraction. It's like he's has been waiting for this since that first brush of Souji's fingers outside the Junes and now that he has him again his brain is racing into overdrive. He wants—what the hell is going on, he _wants_ —

“That's burning,” Souji says.

Yosuke doesn't understand the words, but he understands when the smell of smoke hits his nose. Souji yanks a pan off the stove. Yosuke gets out of the way in time for him to throw it in the sink and hit the tap. Steam billows up in puffs, thick and foggy from the water. Chunks of charred something-or-other rise to the surface as the faucet gushes, spilling over the sides of the pot and circling the drain.

“Sorry,” Souji says. “I uh, I didn't notice it soon enough.”

Souji's cheeks are pink. Yosuke ought to say something—make a joke, reassure him that it's okay. But it's like the words are screwed up in his head and he can't find any of them. He rubs his hands on his pants. They still tingle.

“I don't normally burn things like this.”

The words are so quiet Yosuke almost misses them—murmured as they are into the steam. Souji's hunched inward like he wants to disappear.

“I just... I'm not used to cooking with people,” he admits, like that's something to be ashamed of. Somehow, it's that vulnerability in his voice that makes Yosuke able to think again.

Yosuke bumps Souji's shoulder. “Hey, that's fine,” he says. “I'm not used to cooking, period, so I still think you're doing okay. 8 out of 10, at least.”

“Mm.” Souji hangs his head, a sigh on his lips. “That's all that matters, huh.”

 _Of course that's what matters_ , Yosuke wants to say, but hesitates, and before he's figured out what to say the moment is over. Souji swiftly finishes off the onion and scrapes it from the cutting board into the pot in a fluid move that Yosuke would probably need years to perfect. He's a flurry of motion, fixing whatever it is he burned, checking pots and getting plates. This time Yosuke doesn't wait for Souji to tell him he's in the way. He slips out of the kitchen while Souji's back is turned.

Souji's cleaned the living room. It's mostly put together now—pillows on the couch, garbage taken out, chairs at the table. The only thing that's the same is the pink blanket. Yosuke couldn't have watched TV if he wanted to—not without touching it. The thought alone gives him the creeps.

“How's Nanako-chan?” Yosuke asks, and _winces._ He's so freaking insensitive sometimes.

Souji stops, almost drops the plate in his hands. Somehow he turns it into a planned motion, placing it on the counter. “Fine,” he says, carefully even. “Stable. I think, without the fog, she should show some improvement.”

“Oh. Right.” Yosuke can't see more than the back of Souji's head. “Yeah, that makes sense. Um.” He needs to change the subject. _Think!_ “S-so, uh, now that the investigation's over, I think I'm gonna start saving for a motorcycle again.”

“Oh, really?”

Yosuke's pretty sure that's just Souji's polite “I'm listening but I don't care,” voice, but then he turns around with a tilt of interest in his eyebrows. Yosuke continues.

“Yeah, I mean, now that all this TV stuff is in the past, there's nothing stopping me.”

Souji nods, tasting a spoonful of his new non-burnt sauce. “You've got Teddie, though.”

“Ugh, don't remind me. That bear is the _worst_ , lemme tell you.” Yosuke plops down at the table, chin in his hands. “I thought I had him when he started getting paychecks from Junes, but if anything it's just made him worse.” Yosuke pitches his voice an octave higher. “'But they only have one copy, Yosuke!' 'But what if it sells out before next week, Yosuke!' Bleh. Why does manga have to be so fricken expensive anyway? Can't he just keep loaning stuff from Rise? Why does he have to _own_ it?”

Yosuke's pretty sure this isn't riveting conversation, but Souji lets him rant anyway. He talks about Teddie and Rise and something Naoto said the other day and whether or not a motorcycle is practical in a town like Inaba, and Souji listens, and doesn't add much but somehow always says just the right thing. They talk about nothing, and about everything, and soon the knot in Yosuke's gut has loosened so completely he doesn't notice when it's gone. It's just like old times—before Namatame, before the end of the world.

 _This is what it's gonna be like_ , Yosuke realizes. The case is over. No more peril, no more panic, just dinner and smalltalk and that little, surprised _ha!_ Souji lets out when Yosuke catches him off-guard with a joke—all of that, without even the threat of a kidnapping to distract them.

Things are... okay.

For the first time since they met, things are really okay.

...so why is there still this pit in his stomach?

“Are you okay?”

Souji's looking at him, a furrow in his brow. Oh, right. Yosuke's just been sitting here thinking for the past five minutes.

He shakes himself out of his thoughts. “Yeah, I'm good. How's the food?”

“Almost done,” Souji says. “Hungry?”

“Hell yeah.” Yosuke grins. “It smells awesome, partner.”

It's not much, but the compliment earns him a flicker of a smile before Souji turns back to the stove.

They eat at the table this time, like adults. Or maybe not like adults, because they sit at the same side and practically in each other's laps, knocking elbows and knees and squabbling over hunks of meat like kids. Yosuke doesn't care. It's cold in here, and Souji beside him might as well be a furnace. The press of Souji's shoulder and the occasional brush of his stupid cat slippers feels like a blanket, like something Yosuke can pick up and drape around himself and wear for the rest of winter.

Yosuke snaps up another piece of sizzling, meltingly perfect beef and can't stop himself from making an embarrassing noise—something between a moan and a cough, because okay he really needs to stop taking such big bites, but he just can't help himself.

Souji quirks an eyebrow at him. “I guess I don't have to ask if you like it,” he says.

Yosuke tries to drown himself in his water glass.

It's Souji's fault, really. If Souji wasn't such a fantastic cook, Yosuke would be able to pace himself. As it is he's shoveling food in his mouth like Chie during a special at Aiya's. Is this how Souji eats every day? Yosuke can't imagine it. He'd thought Souji's lunches were incredible, but this is like a whole new level.

And Souji is just sitting there, taking tiny bites with chopsticks perfectly poised. He can't expect Yosuke to eat all of this himself, can he? There's enough food here to feed the entire team.

Yosuke drops a piece of meat on Souji's plate. Souji frowns a question at him.

“C'mon, eat,” Yosuke says. “You're making me look bad.”

Souji cocks his head as if he has no idea why Yosuke would be embarrassed about stuffing his face like a pig. “I'm not very hungry,” Souji says.

Yosuke snorts. “Then why did you make so much?”

It's just an off-hand comment, nothing Yosuke thinks about—but Souji looks away, down at his slippers, and there's something almost _shy_ in the dip of his neck—something that ticks a box in the back of Yosuke's head.

“You didn't—you made all this _for me?_ ” Yosuke gapes. Maybe he shouldn't be surprised. Souji does weird, grand favors for people sometimes—it's just part of who he is. But when Souji asked him over, Yosuke hadn't thought it was something Souji was taking seriously, maybe even prepared for, _planned_ for. “Man, I—wow. Okay. Th-thanks.”

Souji tucks his hands under his knees, his head turned as far from Yosuke as possible without turning his back on him. “You don't—” he takes a breath through his nose, steadying. “You don't have to thank me.”

“Uh, yeah I do. This is kinda—”

Souji shakes his head. “No, it's—this is _my_ thank you. To you. F-for cleaning my kitchen and... you know.” He waves a hand vaguely, then lets it drop to the floor. “I... appreciated it.”

He sounds so timid. Yosuke hasn't heard him stammer since their first day of school. It's funny to think back on it, but Souji was a little shy in the beginning—at the time Yosuke just thought he was stoic, but he knows better now. He knows the warmth that Souji is capable of giving towards someone he loves.

“You didn't need to do all this just to thank me, man,” Yosuke says.

“That's a matter of opinion.”

“No, _really_. It—it wasn't a big deal.”

Souji's eyes flick up to Yosuke's and away again before Yosuke can catch them. “It was,” Souji says. “It _was_ a big deal. To me.”

His shoulders are hunched. It's a good thing he's not looking at Yosuke, because Yosuke doesn't think he could meet his eyes right now if he tried.

Yosuke rolls his shoulders, trying to shake off the feeling creeping up his spine. He really doesn't like the way Souji is talking—like Yosuke somehow did something worthy of praise, something that wasn't just what friends—what _partners_ are supposed to do for each other. Souji doesn't honestly think that Yosuke would ever in a million years leave him in a pigsty like that, does he?

Yosuke needs to change the subject to something less confusing.

“W-well, I betcha Dojima-san's gonna have a fit when he sees how much money you spent on groceries.” He nudges Souji. “What're you gonna tell him, huh? That you had the whole team over for a feast?”

Souji grunts. Yosuke gets an idea.

“Hey—how about I pay you back for tonight?” That makes it fair, right? Yosuke pays for the food and Souji cooks it? “Or—maybe just half of it, I'm still waiting on my next paycheck. I think there's some cash in my coat—”

He starts to get up to check, but Souji grabs his wrist.

“No!” he says. “No, I've got it.”

There's this weird, almost panicked look on Souji's face.

“Souji,” Yosuke says. “It's not a problem. This way you won't have to worry about Dojima-san, right?”

Souji shakes his head, hard.

“ _No_ , Yosuke. I can't accept—”

“Well I can't accept all of this just 'cause I brought you some takeout once, okay? Just let me. For Dojima-san's sake, at least. You know I never really thanked him after he bailed us out that time—”

“Yosuke!”

Yosuke knows that voice—his preschool wrangling, TV ordering voice. It makes Yosuke shut up faster than a hand over his mouth.

“Dojima has nothing to do with it,” Souji says, face hard. “It's—it's just me, and I can't take your money.”

Yosuke is about to say something—apologize or insist, he's not sure—but the words get re-routed when he realizes what Souji just said.

“J-just you?” he says. “Wha—what do you mean, 'just you?' You... paid for all this yourself? You—you haven't—”

He thinks back. The takeout boxes, the messy kitchen, the look Souji had worn when he saw that Yosuke brought him dinner—

“You've been buying all your groceries yourself,” he realizes.

It's like all the expression, all the feeling, just drops out of Souji's face.

“Son of a _bitch,_ ” Yosuke says. “You.... how... why _the hell_ didn't you say something!”

Yosuke regrets the words as soon as they leave his mouth. Souji crumples, just—folds inward. But his jaw is gritted, and his eyes are sharp like an argument, and Yosuke is—furious. He's fucking _livid._

“I knew you wouldn't understand,” Souji mutters.

“Damn right I don't! What the hell, Souji! You—you come to me when shit like this happens! You _tell_ someone, you don't—oh my _god_ , you've been living off cheap ramen since Nanako got sick, haven't you?”

“I can take care of myself, Yosuke!” Souji snaps. “It's—I'm not going to say it's easy, but I make enough from my jobs and the TV to support myself. It's not like I was starving. I'm not _stupid._ ”

“Yeah you are! You fucking are if you think it's okay to do this on your own when there are people who can help you—!”

“What was I supposed to do? Show up at your house and ask your parents to let me sleep in your closet with Teddie?”

“For starters! And if they don't say yes, go to Chie, Kanji—Yukiko runs a friggin' inn, for shit's sake! You could sleep under her bed and eat table scraps and nobody'd ever know!”

“I'm not a stray cat, Yosuke.”

“Well your shoes say otherwise!”

Souji blinks. Yosuke tries very, very hard to be angry at him and not crack up because—yeah, Souji is kind of a stray cat. Even if he's also the most annoying, stupid, _selfless..._

“Does it really bother you that much?” Souji asks.

“What the—yeah, yeah it does! Of course it does! What, you think I _like_ to hear that my best friend is scrimping for meals while my mom makes dinner every night? Dammit, you bought me new armor last _week_ —” The more Yosuke thinks about it the more horrible it gets.

“But that's all over,” Souji says, impatiently, like it doesn't matter. “No more expenses, remember?”

“So what? You really wanna keep funneling your money into groceries?”

“I don't want—!” Souji cuts himself off. He lets out a deep breath through his nose. “I don't want to fight about this, Yosuke.”

Yosuke snarls, low in his throat, to keep from shouting back. Souji's right. Pissed as he is, yelling at him isn't going to change anything.

“Then _don't,_ ” Yosuke growls. “Just—”

“I'm not staying with anyone else,” Souji says. “I've done fine so far—I _have_ , Yosuke—and Dojima's going to be back in a few weeks anyway. I'm not going to impose on someone like that.”

Yosuke opens his mouth to argue, but Souji holds up a hand.

“It's my decision.”

 _And that's final,_ goes unsaid.

Yosuke huffs. “Fine. But I'm not happy about it. And if you have any trouble— _any_ trouble, you come to me, you hear me?”

“I hear you.” Souji's voice is quiet once again.

Yosuke huffs again. It's not nearly enough, but it's all he's going to get.

He falls back onto Souji's floor, stretching out his legs and arms and scrunching up handfuls of hair. He doesn't care if he looks ridiculous, if he doesn't do something to stretch the tension out of his limbs he's going to explode like a grenade. The adrenaline of an argument pounds away under his skin, desperate for an outlet it can't have. That unsatisfied feeling is back and stronger than ever—everything is settled, but nothing is solved.

The case is over, but there's still so much that Yosuke needs to fix.

“I'm sorry.”

Souji's voice makes him groan. He doesn't want to hear Souji apologize all small and sad like that—now he feels like a dick.

“I didn't know it would make you so upset,” Souji says, like that's an explanation, some kind of excuse for his total refusal of common sense.

Yosuke rolls onto his side.

“Yeah,” he mutters. “That's what's upsetting.”

Somewhere, a clock ticks. The world is silent, too quiet even to hear Souji's breathing. He could've gotten up and left or somehow melted into the walls, and Yosuke would never know.

If Yosuke's being honest, Souji's always been a little uncanny, a little strange. It's the thing that made him interesting when he was just some transfer student with a bowl cut, and it's the thing that made Yosuke trust him in the TV world without question, because Souji has this look about him like the world is an equation and it's his personal responsibility to find the answer. It doesn't matter if he's solving for X on a midterm or solving a murder on the Midnight Channel—everything has a number, and everything can be solved. If Souji was a super villain, he'd probably rule the world by now. Yosuke saw his dayplanner once and had nightmares about missed deadlines for weeks.

But there's this thing that Souji does where, when he tallies up the numbers of the people and places around him, he forgets to count himself in the equation. Or maybe he counts himself as zero—invisible, irrelevant to the outcome. But the truth is, Souji matters more than anyone. Souji is the placeholder that lets everyone know where they stand.

Yosuke has now torn out some of his hair. He tries to relax his hands, but he can't seem to get them untangled. He's so frustrated it hurts. How can someone so accomodating be so _stubborn?_ It goes against the logic Souji loves so much.

He stretches again, but his hand brushes something warm and solid. He barely feels the give before his fingers are gathered, once again, in Souji's palms.

“When did this happen?”

Souji's voice is low. Yosuke has to roll over to see what he's looking at. Yosuke's sleeve has fallen down his elbow, revealing a thin slash of pink across his inner arm.

He props himself up with his other arm, trying to catch Souji's expression. It's receeded back behind that hazy, unreachable curtain.

“Yesterday,” he says. “When we fought those Shadows that took Kanji out, one of them got in a hit on me, I guess.”

Souji touches the new scar with the pads of his fingers. Yosuke bites his lip.

“What's with you today?” he asks. Souji peers up at him through his eyelashes. “You've been really... touchy-feely.”

Souji rubs his thumb along the scar. This time, Yosuke can't stop the shiver that snaps through his shoulders, pulls his limbs inward and curled like a bug on the sidewalk, helpless.

“Does it bother you?” Souji asks.

His thumb halts. It sits, pressed, over Yosuke's pulse.

“N-no,” Yosuke says. “No, I—it's nice. You're... nice.”

Souji is staring at him in a way that makes Yosuke's head spin. Souji has to feel how his heart is thudding. The pounding is so loud in his ears.

“I didn't notice,” Souji says, the words so soft Yosuke leans forward to catch them. “I should've known you'd been hurt.”

“Well, I do know a couple healing spells,” Yosuke says. Souji just hums.

He strokes the healed skin, again, and lifts Yosuke's arm. Up, up, until the scar's right under his nose. His breath clings, hot, humid, on Yosuke's skin.

“P-partner...” Yosuke says, before his throat closes up entirely. Souji looks at him, stares right through his eyes and into whatever part of Yosuke is the most real. Behind the Personas and the Shadows and the everyday bullshit—the center, the heart of him.

Souji's thumb strokes— _calm down, take a breath,_ and Yosuke does, sucks air into his lungs in a hiss as Souji bends, hair falling forward, mouth soft and chapped— He presses his lips to the thin line of scar.

Yosuke almost jerks his hand back in shock, but the impulse dies somewhere between his spine and his shoulder, turns instead into a twist of his wrist—as if embarrassed, hiding the scar from sight. Souji follows it with his fingers.

“Yosuke,” he says. “I...”

Yosuke hiccups. Or coughs. Except that then it happens again, and again, and he's spluttering, choking, convulsing with these weird sob-like gasps and—oh, wait, is this _laughter?_ Why the hell is he laughing? This isn't _funny,_ dammit.

Souji tries to talk. But Yosuke can't stop, can't hear him over the sound of his own breaths. He pulls out of Souji's hands, pulls his knees to his chest, wraps into a ball and holds on as his lungs heave. It doesn't feel like laughing. It feels like being kicked in the ribs. Like throwing up.

Souji pats his back, but that just makes it worse. Yosuke rubs his eyes. They're damp, but there's no tears on his cheeks.

“S-sor-r-ry,” he manages between gasps. “I—c-can't—”

“You're hyperventilating,” Souji says.

 _No shit,_ Yosuke wants to snap, but he _can't._

There's a terrible moment where Yosuke is dead certain that he's going to pass out, but then Souji slips an arm behind his back and the touch is so startling that Yosuke holds his breath, and when he starts breathing again it's a little slower, a little smoother. Soon, it's settled into something sharp and hitching but stable.

Souji sits back on his heels. The cat slippers glare at Yosuke and somehow all he can see is Teddie's simpering mouth saying, _“You don't have to be embarrassed~”_ Shit. _Shit._ Why do all his friends have to be so _weird?_

“Yosuke...”

“It's nothing,” he says. “I'm fine, I just—I don't know, I thought of something, I—”

Souji touches his arm. Yosuke jumps to his feet like he's been stung.

“Give me some space!” he snaps. And, wow, that's harsh. He tries to pass it off with a laugh. “G-geez, partner! I know you're new to this whole touchy-feely business, but there's still some lines, man.”

“Lines,” Souji repeats.

Yosuke nods frantically. “Yeah, like—mouths? Off limits. Seriously, dude, what were you thinking? I'm sure it's cute when you kiss Nanako's scrapes on the playground, but, hey, don't know if you noticed but I'm not a six year old girl.”

“Nanako's seven,” Souji says, quietly.

Yosuke makes himself laugh. “You are so _weird,_ partner! You always get hung up on these odd little details.” Yosuke is on a roll now, the words coming easily, the panic receeding. “And the things you come up with? Half the time I don't know what you're talking about! But hey, at least it's funny, right? You're, uh, what's the word, eccentic? I just wish you had a little more common sense sometimes.”

Souji gets to his feet. He opens his mouth. Yosuke panics.

“You know, I'm—I'm actually pretty tired,” he says, lies, doesn't matter. “We've had a long day, you know? So crazy! I uh, I should really get home. Plus, my mom—and Teddie—you know, they worry. So, so, thanks! For having me over, and everything, you got a great, um, the food was awesome, let's do this again some time?”

It takes Yosuke three tries to tie his shoes, spewing nonesense while Souji watches, silent.

“Uh, s-see you around, partner!” Yosuke says, and bolts.

He's down the front steps and halfway down the street before he realizes his shoes are on the wrong feet. He doesn't fix them. He has this horrible feeling that Souji's going to run after him. That when Yosuke reaches the intersection at the end of the street, Souji will come pelting forward with accusations on his lips. He can picture it so clearly in his head. If his life were a movie or one of Rise's manga, he thinks that's exactly what would happen.

But life isn't that simple. When Yosuke pauses at the corner to catch his breath, there's no one chasing for him but his shadow.

***

The light in Teddie's closet is on when Yosuke throws himself into bed.

“Yosuke?”

“M'm not in the mood, Ted.” The pillow muffles and deadens his sound, but anyone with an ounce of sense could tell he meant it.

There's a rustle and a pad of feet beside him, anyway. Dumb bear.

“Your clothes are on,” Teddie observes.

Yosuke is too tired to quip at him, even if Teddie's once again stating the blatantly obvious.

Teddie pushes his shoulder. Yosuke swats at him. “Ugh, what— _what!_ ”

“You can't sleep like this,” Teddie says. “You'll get wrinkles!”

“Do I look like I care about friggin _wrinkles_ right now?”

“I don't know,” Teddie snaps. “It's _dark._ ”

Yosuke sighs.

“Just lemme alone,” he mutters.

Eventually, Teddie does. It doesn't actually make Yosuke feel any better.

He doesn't sleep.

Headlights scatter the shadows of his bedroom, cracking the darkness with butter-yellow streaks. From the bedside table, his clock flashes. 10:00. 10:30. 11:00. Yosuke watches the dots and counts down the seconds between minutes. Counting is supposed to help you fall asleep, he thinks. Souji told him so.

A light rain starts around eleven. It raps at the windows like tiny knocking hands. It's hard not to be anxious at the sound, after everything that's happened.

He claws his hands into the bed. What he wants to do is claw into himself instead—tear into his bones, get under his skin, find whatever's broken and _fix it._ He can feel it, something bitter and blooming in his chest. He can call it jealousy, he can call it anger, he can pretend that it's just nerves but it's not. He thought he'd gotten past all this months ago. He thought he'd learned to accept Souji for what he was—perfect, inhuman, unattainable, vulnerable, incredible...

But the feeling lingers. Yosuke rolls onto his side.

He tries to think about something—anything, else, but he can't get Souji out of his head. The sick thing is that Souji is usually what he thinks about before he goes to sleep, because Souji calms him down and sorts him out like nothing else, but now...

Souji should've known better. Souji should've known that it's not okay to get close to someone like that, to— _shit._

Yosuke scrapes his arms against the sheets, trying to stamp out the hot, confused feeling bubbling under his skin. The truth is, he can't blame Souji for this. Souji was just being his usual odd, innocent, affectionate self—it's Yosuke who's turning it into something _weird._ That's what he does, isn't it? Always awkward, always ruining the moment, always stepping on everyone's toes... a pain in the ass.

There's something wrong with him. Something that isn't going away.

There's a spot of drool on Yosuke's pillow. His mouth tastes like cotton and stale curry, and there's a bit of gristle stuck between his teeth. He should get up and brush them, but his legs feel like lead, and he doesn't really care, anyway. Bad breath is the least he deserves.

Sometime around eleven thirty, Yosuke's eyelids start to droop. It feels like a miracle, even if it's just two months of exhaustion catching up. He's almost asleep when he hears a soft hiss, like a television coming on.

 _That's funny,_ he thinks, and he opens his eyes, thinking that Teddie might be up and restless for something—but the closet door is shut.

A sickly yellow light streams in across the floor.

Yosuke sits up. His heart beats with the echo of thunder in the distance. He can't tear his eyes away. In the darkness the television almost seems to burn, shifting and hazy, like a dying sun.

A shape is on the screen. It sits, legs stretched along something long and smooth. It's hand is raised as if to beckon. It tilts it's head, and the point of it's nose appears along its sillhouette.

Yosuke falls out of bed. He crawls, half-stumbles to the screen. He puts his hand beside it as if he could reach through, yank the specter right out of it's taunting scene.

He knows it doesn't work that way, but he could almost swear the static whispers. _Yosuke,_ it says. _Yosuke, Yosuke—_

The figure shudders, and the screen goes dark.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> It disturbs me how much the events of this chapter were inspired by my sixteen year old self. I know everyone regrets their teenage years, but damn.
> 
> Comment and subscribe for more of Yosuke being tortured by his own stupidity. And, y'know, the plot.


	3. Dread In My Heart

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> brace for exposition and angst

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I've decided to start titling all the chapters after songs, because apparently I am still thirteen years old at heart. This chapter was brought to you by the song Dread In My Heart by Mother Mother. Hopefully, when the fic is done, all the chapter songs will make a nice little angsty playlist you can read to!

People are starting to creep back. Into the streets, into the parks, into the aisles of Junes—all the places they abandoned when the fog settled in. Now that the weather's back to normal, it's like everyone's decided that spring's come early. Kids run past him with no coats and snotty noses, chasing each other across the rooftop playground. In a corner somewhere Teddie stands in his mascot getup, passing out balloons like the world's a party. It's so cheerful here Yosuke wants to go back inside, find a toilet to scrub or something else fitting for his foul mood to sulk over.

But he doesn't have that luxury. His break is only forty minutes, and he can't waste a second—not when something this important is at stake. He steps out into the brilliant midwinter sun and scans the food court for signs of his friends.

He's surprised to find someone already here—Chie, sitting at the usual table with her arms folded and her feet kicked out in the air. She's scowling and, huh, Yukiko's nowhere in sight.

“Yo,” Yosuke says. It comes out as a phlegmy grunt.

Chie looks up. Her nose wrinkles when she realizes who it is.

“Are we the only ones here?” She cranes her neck, as if there might be someone crouching in Yosuke's shadow.

Yosuke tries not to roll his eyes. “Yeah. I couldn't get Teddie's and my breaks to line up, so he's gonna sit this one out. I'll fill him in after. And I, uh, couldn't get ahold of Souji, but Naoto-kun said—”

“He's coming,” Chie says, firmly. “He wouldn't miss something this important.”

_Oh, so_ **_now_ ** _it's important? Great. That's just frickin' great._

Yosuke bites his tongue. Snapping at her won't change her mind—won't make him look any less _delusional._

Chie grinds her toe into the pavement. “Aren't you gonna sit down?”

It sounds more like an accusation than a question. Yosuke sits, if only to avoid an argument. He keeps his hands in his lap, his knees a good foot away from Chie's. He likes Chie, really he does, but sometimes... well. Their friendship is _complicated_ to say the least.

Chie checks her phone.

“Yukiko?” Yosuke asks.

Chie sighs. “We were gonna come together—” _big surprise_ “—but the inn got swamped at the last minute. She's on her way now, though.” Chie squints at him. “You know I was waiting for like, ten minutes before you came out here?”

“Dude, I was _working_. It's not like I was avoiding you.”

Chie doesn't look convinced. But she turns away, puts her chin in her hand. “Yeah. I know. But...”

Yosuke doesn't bother trying to piece together her thought for her. He fiddles with the sleeve of his jacket, bunching his fists in the material. His fingers are freezing.

“Yosuke... when you called me last night...”

Yosuke fights the urge to grimace. Do they really have to talk about this?

“I know I was—well, I didn't really listen to you.”

Yosuke buries his chin in his collar. _Understatement._

“But I've talked it over with Yukiko and—um—what I'm trying to say is, I'm sorry.”

This time, Yosuke's sure the surprise shows on his face. He has to look at her just to be sure—she's earnest and focused, definitely not teasing.

“I'm sorry,” she repeats. “You were freaked and I shouldn't have, y'know, acted like you were crazy. But you gotta understand—I mean, for one thing, you woke me up in the middle of the night, I was really groggy and you just started spouting this stuff about the Midnight Channel, it really sounded like you just, like, had a nightmare or something. But I've decided.” She sits up a little straighter. “I believe you, Yosuke. At least, I don't think you'd freak out about this if _you_ didn't believe it, so.”

She looks at him pointedly. Yosuke fumbles for something to say.

“Uh, thanks?” he tries.

Chie leans across the bench, squinting at him. “No hard feelings?”

“No way,” Yosuke says, because any other answer is unthinkable while in kicking range.

“Good.” Chie nods, and beams, and whatever conflict she was feeling before is gone in a blink. She goes back to swinging her feet, kicking dust and lunchtime debris into the air.

“Think it's gonna rain again tonight?” she asks.

“Nah. The forecast said we'd have clear skies till the weekend.”

There's not even a single cloud up there. It's like the weather is overcompensating for the fog or something.

Yosuke rubs his eyes. All this sun is making them water.

“Tired?”

Chie's watching him, something almost sympathizing on her face.

“Uh, kinda.” Yosuke ducks away from her gaze. “I guess I didn't get enough sleep.”

He can _feel_ her eyes on the back of his neck. Dammit, it's not fair for such an airhead to be so perceptive.

“Don't worry,” she says. “We're gonna figure this out. Right?”

She sounds too uncertain to be comforting. Yosuke rubs the back of his neck.

“Um... Yosuke...”

There's a small shuffling sound as she scoots along the bench. Yosuke hunches his shoulders. Whatever she's going to say, he doesn't like the way she’s getting close to him.

“Why _did_ you call me?” she asks. “I mean, Souji didn't answer his phone, I get that, but... you've got everyone's number. You could've called Naoto-kun or someone who's, like, good at this investigation stuff. But you didn't. So... why me?”

Crap. Now he's wishing she _had_ stayed mad. He knows what to do with an angry Chie, but this talkative is freaking him out.

“Geez, I don't know?” he says, more sarcastically than he means to. “I panicked? I was half asleep, gimme a break.”

“Don't snap at me! I was just—” She stops herself, biting her tongue. “Tch. It doesn't matter. Forget it.”

She looks away, turns her glare to the edge of the rooftop. Yosuke almost feels bad. Maybe.

Because there _was_ a reason, it was just a stupid reason. An embarrassing reason. The truth is... when it comes right down to it, Chie—obnoxious, chatterbox, kung-fu-obsessed Chie—is the closest friend Yosuke has, aside from Souji.

But that's, just, way too pathetic to admit. Yosuke could never say it aloud— _especially_ not to her, she'd never let him live it down. So, he snaps at her and pisses her off instead. It's no wonder he's so crap at keeping friends, if this is how he treats them.

He tries to think of a way to apologize that won't make him look like even more of an ass—or at least something to break the awkward silence that's fallen between them. But he can't.

In the end, they're saved by the arrival of Rise. She's as bubbly and cheerful as always and even sits down on Yosuke's other side, which actually kinda sucks because he's not in the mood to appreciate the attention right now.

The second she sits down Naoto and Kanji appear from the elevators, sharing a silence so awkward Yosuke feels lucky in comparison. Naoto takes her seat on the empty side of the table. Kanji trips and almost faceplants into a trash can, and okay maybe Yosuke shouldn't laugh quite as hard as he does, but even Naoto almost cracks a smile, it's that hilarious.

“So, Teddie's not coming?” Rise says, after Kanji's finished threatening to punch the grin off Yosuke's face and has settled down a comfortable distance away. “That just leaves Yukiko-senpai, and—oh, hey! Senpai!”

She waves so hard she almost bounces off her seat.

Yosuke doesn't turn his head, doesn't crane his neck, doesn't even peek out of the corner of his eye. He knows it's not Yukiko standing behind him just from the way the air has changed.

“Hi,” Souji says.

It's the first word Yosuke's heard out of him since... well, yesterday. It's pretty impressive how, despite sitting right next to each other in class, Souji managed to get through the whole day without saying a peep. He showed up to class right as Kashiwagi started her lecture and left before Yosuke could corner him. Even Yosuke's attempts to whisper to him during class were ignored. Souji might as well have been absent—not that Souji's ever missed a day of class. Not even after Nanako got kidnapped, which in Yosuke's opinion ought to get him a frickin' medal.

“Hello, senpai!” Rise chirps. She pats the seat next to her, and Souji, as usual, sits where she directs him.

Dammit, Rise. Now Yosuke has to crane his neck around her just to get a glimpse of him.

“Hey, partner,” he says, a little too loudly. Souji's eyes lock with his for an instant before sliding away again.

Is Souji really ignoring him? He's never done that before. Even when Souji was completely wiped the day after a rescue or busy with one of his clubs, he'd still spare Yosuke a 'hello' and an excuse about why they couldn't hang out. He's never just... shut Yosuke out like this.

Yosuke wracks his brains. What did he do to get Souji this pissed? He must've done _something_.

Was last night really so embarrassing that now Souji can't even look him in the eye?

Yosuke stuffs the thought in the back of his head as soon as it appears. Now isn't the time to get bogged down in all that bullshit. He can beat himself up over his dumb mistakes some time when he's not surrounded by the whole team and doesn't have something _seriously important and messed up_ to talk about.

Chie slams her phone down on the table. “Okay, Yukiko's almost here. She said we can start without her.”

“Good.” Naoto tilts the brim of her hat. “By my count, we only have 31 minutes before the end of Yosuke-senpai's break. Correct?”

She gives him a sharp look that startles an answer out of him. “Uh, yeah,” he stumbles. He doesn't bother to wonder how she knows exactly when he got on break. She's Naoto. Knowing stuff like that is just, like, her _thing._

It must be great, being a prince of detectives instead of a shitty chain store.

“In that case, I suggest we establish exactly what we are gathered here to discuss. Unless there are any objections?”

The question is technically open, but the way she's looking at Souji means it's addressed to him. Yosuke curses Rise again—he can't see Souji's response, but from the way Naoto continues, he must've given her the go-ahead.

“Last night, the Midnight Channel reappeared.” Naoto pauses, as if waiting for someone to let out a shocked gasp. No one does. “Unfortunately, I was... unable to verify this for myself. I believed the Midnight Channel to have been dissolved with the defeat of Ameno-Sagiri—a foolish assumption, for which I make no excuse.”

“Hey, we _all_ thought it was gone,” Kanji interrupts. “Don't beat yourself up about it!”

 _He_ looks about ready to beat her up if she doesn't agree. Naoto tugs on her hat again.

“Well. I digress. Regardless, we were lucky enough that some of us were still able to observe the phenomenon. Yosuke-senpai, if you would describe what you saw for us, please?”

Everyone at the table turns on him. Yosuke shrinks. Shit, this wasn't what he signed up for.

He scrambles for words, but panic has emptied his brain. What is he supposed to say? 'I saw a blurry shape and freaked out?' He never had to do this any of the other times they watched the Midnight Channel.

Naoto frowns at him, but her eyes are sympathetic-ish. At least, as sympathetic as Naoto ever looks.

“I apologize for putting you on the spot, but any detail you can recall could be vital to the investigation.”

She's right. Crap.

Yosuke clears his throat. He relates the story as briefly as he can—edited for time and without mentioning the reason that he was so restless last night, it’s not any of their business anyway. But it turns out that without the backdrop of awkwardness, there really isn’t much of a story.

“So, uh, I just saw someone on the Midnight Channel. That's all.”

“What did it look like?” Naoto presses. “Could you distinguish any of its features?”

 _It'd be a lot easier to remember if everyone wasn't staring at me._ Yosuke shuts his eyes for a second to compose himself. It’s funny—he’s never been one for stage fright, but it seems there’s a big difference between standing in the limelight and sweating under the spotlight of Naoto’s interrogation.

“I guess, he—er, _it_ was pretty tall?” Yosuke says. “It's hard to get a sense of scale when it's just a silhouette like that, but, I think it was tall. Like, it definitely wasn't a kid.”

An uncomfortable, restless thing sweeps across the table. No one wants to say it, but... after what happened to Nanako, that's a relief.

“And it was lying down, too,” Yosuke remembers. “Sorta propped up on its elbows. Like it was on a couch or something.”

Naoto's eyes narrow. “Are you sure?”

Yosuke coughs. It feels like she's trying to squeeze the air out of his lungs just by staring. “Uh, y-yeah. That's what I remember, anyway.”

“Hmm. Interesting.” Naoto squints at him once more before tearing her eyes away. “Has any Shadow ever appeared to be sitting before?”

“I don't think so,” Rise says, slowly. “The ones I saw were all standing up.”

“Yukiko's was,” Chie remembers. “And Kanji's. I—I think all of them were like that. Do you think it means anything?”

“That remains to be seen,” Naoto says, because like hell would Naoto ever be anything other than cryptic.

“What do you think, Souji?”

Yosuke doesn't actually realize the words came out of his mouth until the table goes silent. He didn't really mean to say it—not loud enough for anyone to hear, at least—but c'mon, why is Souji being so _quiet?_ It's starting to piss him off. Even if Souji's got some beef with Yosuke, it's not fair to the rest of the team to be so passive-aggressive about it. They need their leader. Souji can't just shrug off his responsibilities because he's having a shit day.

Souji coughs. “Um,” he says. “I agree with Naoto.”

 _“That's a copout and you know it,”_ Yosuke starts to snap, but he barely manages a word before someone talks right over him.

“Sorry I'm so late, everyone! I really thought I'd get here faster.”

“That's okay!” Chie scoots almost into Yosuke's lap to give Yukiko room to sit down. “We're just getting started, anyway.”

Chie fills Yukiko in on what she missed. Yosuke slumps onto his arms. This side of the table is starting to get seriously claustrophobic. Five people is really too much for one bench, but there's no way for Yosuke to get free now, smushed as he is in the middle.

“Can you recall anything else?” Naoto asks, when Yukiko's finally settled.

Yosuke shakes his head. “I wish I could. There really wasn't much to see.”

“Very well.” Naoto shifts in her seat. “Kanji-kun?”

Kanji looks about as surprised to be addressed as Yosuke was. “Wh-what?”

“Can you describe for us what you saw last night?”

“Wait,” Yosuke says. “You saw it too?”

Kanji grunts. “Uh, I only caught part of it, but, yeah. I saw it.”

Yosuke digs his fingers into his jacket. He knows it's irrational, but he can't help wondering who else knew that Kanji saw the Midnight Channel last night—if _Souji_ knew it, and didn’t tell him.

He’s not that mad, is he?

Yosuke tries to catch Souji's eye without being obvious about it, but Souji is rapt, focused on Kanji, and Rise’s fluffy pigtails keep getting in the way.

“I dunno 'bout you, senpai, but what I saw was definitely a dude,” Kanji says. “And he wasn't lying down. He was sorta... hunched.”

“Hunched?” Naoto repeats.

“Yeah.” Kanji nods. “Like, he was sitting on something, kinda—y'know, hunched over.” Kanji mimics the gesture, ducking his head and pushing his shoulders forward. “I couldn't see his hands at all. Could barely see his head.”

Kanji fidgets, probably because Naoto's stare has passed 'intense' and gone right for 'unashamed leering.' “You're completely certain of this?”

“Uh, I guess.” Kanji squirms in his seat. He kicks his legs under the table and almost breaks Yosuke's shin with his boot.

“Then it seems we have a significant discrepancy.” Naoto sits back in her seat. “One sees a man sitting, one sees a figure lying down... this is highly irregular.”

She's using her normal detective voice, but she's looking right at Yosuke—judging, evaluating, staring like she wants to bore a hole through him. Does she think he lied about what he saw? Yosuke might not be the most reliable guy, but he'd like to think his friends think better of him than that.

“Despite the myth that the Midnight Channel reveals one's soulmate,” Naoto says, “has there ever been any evidence to suggest that the Midnight Channel shows more than one person at a time?”

 _No_. _Of course not._

Yosuke waits for someone to say it. But everyone else seems to be waiting for the same thing. They're all looking at Naoto, or their hands, or at Souji. No one wants to take charge. No one was really here for the whole investigation except for him, and Chie, and Souji.

Yosuke tries to catch Souji's eye, but Souji's not looking at anyone. He's squinting up into the sky, mouth half-open. It doesn't even look like he's _listening_.

If it were anyone else, Yosuke would try to get his attention—might shout at him in frustration at least. But what good would that do now? Souji doesn't respond to arguments, or confrontations, or threats. If he doesn't want to talk, there's nothing Yosuke can do to change his mind.

 _Ugh_. _Screw this._

“No,” Yosuke says, loud enough to carry across the table. “I've never heard of anything like this happening before.”

The words break the silence. Everyone fractures into murmurs. Conversations confirming, discussing, suggesting, reassuring. Yosuke tries not to feel like the third wheel, even though everyone else is talking to the person they're closest to and he's just sitting here like a bump on a log.

“Kanji-kun.” Naoto’s cool voice stills them to silence again. “Are you sure there are no other details that could help our investigation?”

“Uh...” Kanji gets that deer in the headlights look again. “I, uh... there's somethin'. But it's sorta, like... s'just something I was thinking. I dunno if it'll help—”

“Please, share it.”

“It's really stupid,” Kanji insists. He's going so red his face looks sunburnt.

“Yeah, so?” Yosuke snorts. “C'mon, how dumb could it really be?”

Kanji looks like he wants to retort, but luckily Naoto's there to keep things from escalating. “No information is useless at this stage of the proceedings,” she says, and that seems to be enough. Kanji shifts his shoulders.

“Well, uh... s-so, I was, uh, just thinking...” Kanji rubs the back of his neck. “You, um, you think Shadows ever come back, maybe?”

Naoto quirks her head to the side. “...what do you mean?”

Kanji shifts again—it's like he's trying to use the bench as a swingset, the way he keeps digging in his heels. “Er, y'know, what if... wh-what if...”

“Oh!” Yukiko suddenly seems to be paying attention. “Do you think you saw _your_ Shadow last night, Kanji-kun?”

 _Saw his Shadow_... _what?_ Yosuke's sure he must've heard wrong. That can't be it.

But Kanji's just blushing furiously at the ground, not saying anything. _Seriously?_

Yosuke laughs. It's just too ridiculous.

“What?” Kanji growls. “You got something to say, Yosuke-senpai?”

His face is pretty threatening, but with a table between them and surrounded by a food court full of witnesses, Yosuke's feeling pretty invincible. “Shadows don't just _come back_ like that.”

“How d'you know?” Kanji snaps. “S'not like there's a handbook for any of this crap.”

“Yeah, but you can't have a Shadow and a Persona at the same time,” Yosuke says. “Is your Persona gone? No. So it's not your Shadow, dude. Case closed.”

“Actually, do we really know that?” Chie asks. “About Personas, I mean. Maybe there _is_ a way to have a Persona and a Shadow at the same time? Like, if you accept it, but only half way. Like a half-lie, you know?”

Yosuke groans. “That makes no sense at all.”

“Kanji-kun,” Naoto interrupts. “What about the Shadow made you think it could have been yours? Have you had any trouble summoning your Persona recently?”

Kanji shakes his head. “No, nothin' like that. S'just, what you were saying about Shadows not sitting down... well, when I saw it, it was kinda sitting like I was. Like it was… mirrorin’ me, or something.”

“Uh, are you sure you didn't just see your reflection on the screen?” Yosuke asks.

Kanji shoots him a glare of pure murder. “It was the Midnight Channel, dammit!”

“Okay, okay! Geez.” Yosuke turns the information around in his head. “Well, maybe it’s just a coincidence.”

“No, man, I’m sure of it,” Kanji says. “Pretty sure it was knitting just like I was, too.”

Yosuke gapes. “You thought the Shadow was _knitting_?”

“Tch, so? That really the weirdest thing we've ever seen a Shadow do?”

...he's got a point. But compared to what Kanji’s Shadow (ugh) was doing the _last_ time they saw it, imagining it _knitting_ is pretty much impossible.

“Whatever,” Yosuke says. “The point is, it didn't look anything like you.”

“It was a friggin' Shadow! It didn't look like anyone!”

“Yeah, but it really _didn't_ look like you.”

“Yosuke-senpai,” Naoto says loudly. “Where were you watching the Midnight Channel last night? Were you perhaps lying down, maybe on a couch or the floor?”

“Uh, I was in bed, actually,” Yosuke says. “How did you...?”

Naoto's no longer looking at him. Instead, she addresses the whole table.

“Last night, Kanji-kun observed the Midnight Channel while knitting in his living room. The Shadow he saw appeared to be sitting upright and working with its hands. Meanwhile, at the same time, Yosuke-senpai observed the same Shadow lying down while he himself was in bed. From this, I think we can conclude that whatever this phenomenon is, it perfectly mimics the position of the viewer.”

“Wait,” Chie says. “So, you think this Shadow is like, copying people who see it? That’s pretty nuts.”

Naoto makes a sort of dignified shrug. “I have no other hypothesis.” She casts her eyes across the table. “Do you?”

Silence falls so thickly it’s like the cast of a curse.

“How are we supposed to figure out who it is, though?” Rise asks timidly. “If it copies people, can we figure out anything from the Midnight Channel at all?”

A good question. Once again, Naoto’s the only one with an answer.

“We can’t worry about that yet,” she says. “For now, let’s just focus on staying vigilant. Remember, with Namatame and Adachi in police custody and the source of the fog defeated, there should be little risk of anyone falling into the TV. The only others that we know possess the power to enter the TV world are here at this table.”

Naoto’s right. And yet, it doesn’t _feel_ right.

_Ka-thump!_

Yukiko slams her hand down on the table. It takes Yosuke a minute to realize she almost fell out of her seat—she's been leaning out of it practically since she got here, probably trying to glimpse the clock across the courtyard.

“Sorry,” she blushes. “Do you know how much longer this meeting will be? I promised Mother I’d be back quickly—the inn’s been so busy ever since the fog left, and half the staff are ill…”

Her eyes dart to Souji. On any other day he’d take this as a cue to wrap up the meeting, draw things to a conclusion and help everyone find their places in the week to come.

Now, he doesn’t even look at her. His back is turned, head craned to the sky and feet out flat like he’s ready to run at the first sign of rain. Is he even _listening?_

“Wait,” Yosuke says, because no one else is going to. “Don’t we need to make a decision?”

“A decision?” Chie’s brow wrinkles. “Like what?”

“Well—y’know, like, a course of action.” He can’t stop himself from glancing across the table at Naoto—he just needs a little support, okay? “Who’s doing what, which leads we should chase—y’know, that stuff.”

Naoto taps a finger to her chin. “Good point, senpai.”

_Thank you, Naoto._

“In that case, I suggest we keep an eye on the Midnight Channel to see if this phenomenon continues to present itself. And of course, we should remain on the lookout for any usual local news or occurrences.”

Yosuke waits for her to continue, but she just nods her head and sits—point apparently made.

No.

That can’t be it.

“Oh, c’mon,” he says. “That’s basically what we’re doing already!”

Naoto turns on him. “What else do you suppose we do?”

“W-well! We could, uh...”

Yosuke’s voice trails away in the force of her stare.

“We don’t have enough information to start a more thorough investigation, senpai,” Naoto says, as gently, firmly as he’s ever heard her. “The best we can do is adjourn. In a few days, perhaps we’ll have more to go on and can share our findings then.”

_No. This isn’t right._

_Something’s missing, and we shouldn’t stop until we find out what it is!_

The words sit just under his tongue. He can’t force them out—it’d be stupid to say it, melodramatic, like he’s doing a bad impersonation of Souji. Yosuke’s never been good at convincing, not like Souji. Instead of sincere it just comes out sarcastic.

“How are we supposed to get more information if we don’t start looking now?” he asks instead.

“We don’t have _anything_ to go on,” Naoto says. “I don’t know how to put this any plainer. We have no leads.”

“That’s because we’re not thinking hard enough!” Yosuke says. “We need a new angle, a—something! C’mon.” He bends out of his seat to catch Souji’s eye. “Back me up, partner!”

Souji looks at him, and... in a way, it's worse than when he wasn't looking. There's none of that recognition there, that easy charm and easier brilliance behind those careful eyes. He just looks... tired.

He turns away.

“Actually,” he says, into his jacket collar, “I agree with Naoto.”

Yosuke's heart _thuds_.

“We can't make any real progress with one of our members absent,” Souji continues in that same soft, dry monotone, like he's reciting example problems in class. “And we don't have any leads. We should let this go for now.”

“No.” Yosuke shakes his head. “We're not done yet.”

“Yosuke,” Chie says, in a _just drop it_ kind of voice.

“No!” he snaps. “C'mon, Chie, you know we can't leave things like this! Someone could be in danger!”

“Only if they go in the TV,” Chie says. “And they probably won't, so—”

“So we should do _nothing_?”

Chie jumps out of her seat. “I never said that!”

“You didn't have to!” Yosuke is _shouting_ now. “I can't believe you all want to sit on your asses when you promised to solve this!”

“No, we promised to find the _killer_ ,” Chie says. “And we did! What more do you want us to do? Solve a whole new mystery in one stupid meeting?”

“At least we have to try!”

“We _are_ trying! Can’t you tell?” Chie pulls her head into her hands, makes a sound like steam escaping a kettle. “Ugh, I’m so tired of _trying_.”

Rise raises her voice before Yosuke finds his.

“I know you just want to help, senpai,” she says, looking right at him. “But I think we should all take a break, okay? Everyone's really tired, and the past few days have been so crazy. We deserve a rest.”

“Yeah, Yosuke,” Chie shoots back. “You should take a break.”

“Oh, shut up!”

“You first!” Chie spits. “Tch, this is just like what happened with Namatame.”

Yosuke's blood _boils_.

“Excuse me?” he says, soft, because the alternative is to lunge for her throat.

“You get pissed, and you pitch a fit, and then you do something stupid!” Chie snarls. “Well this time, I'm not hanging around to watch you kill someone!” She swings her leg over the bench. “C'mon, Yukiko!”

Yosuke doesn't wait for Yukiko to move. He snatches Chie by the jacket collar—maybe to stop her, maybe to hit her, maybe just to scream in her stupid, furious face—

“ _Yosuke!_ ”

Souji is out of his seat. His shoulders are back, his head snapped forward, a viper ready to strike.

“Let go _,_ ” Souji says, dangerously quiet.

Yosuke releases Chie's sleeve. Chie doesn’t even notice.

“Go home.” Souji's voice is cold water. “We're done here.”

The air rushes out of Yosuke's lungs like a popped tire.

“B-but...”

Souji's stares right at him. The incredible thing is, there's no anger in his eyes. It shouldn't be surprising—Souji has the patience of like, ten monks—but it hits him like a pound of bricks to the gut. Souji's not angry with him. He's _disappointed_.

“Yosuke,” he says, “go home.”

The words leave no room for debate.

Yosuke drops his fists. He couldn't speak if he wanted to—his tongue is tangled up with fury. He scrambles over the bench—stumbles, bruises his shin on the edge. Pain stings until his eyes water.

He doesn't remember running for the elevator. Just standing there, hammering the button until the doors swing wide. He climbs inside, wanting nothing more than to slump to the floor, or maybe tear off the wall panels with his teeth. Instead, he stands stock still until the doors release him and he can take off through produce, past electronics, right out the front doors and into the open air again.

He runs for a while. He pounds the pavement with the _thwap_ of discount Junes sneakers. The shopping district eyes him worse than usual, the daily disapproval mixed in with a dose of worry, suspicion. He tunes it out with the beat of his pace like he usually does with the beat of a pop song.

Somewhere past the shrine, he slows. He's ran out of fury. His chest is burning, and his legs feel like wet noodles. He practically limps down the street.

He’s not going home. He can't, not like this, sore and furious and with wet tracks down his cheeks. His mother might see. Might nag at him, or worse, comfort him. Just the thought makes anger burn down to his ankles. He doesn't want _comfort_. He wants to scream and beat his fists to the bone. He wants to curl up somewhere dark and die of self-pity.

He can't do either of those things. But luckily, he knows somewhere that's second best.

***

The Samegawa pavilion is so cold it feels damp under his jeans. Yosuke digs his fingers into the bench, gripping the grooves dug deep by a generation of previous sitters. He's not sure what time it is. He turned off his phone after his dad left about a million angry messages asking why he didn't come back from his break. That's one shit-storm Yosuke just can't deal with right now.

His music, though, that's on full blast. There's something about loud, angry rock and roll that feels like the opposite of a storm—like sitting in the eye of a hurricane. A typhoon could be screaming for his blood but in here, the comforting weight of his headphones makes a circle of total serenity, an umbrella of peace. Call him crazy, but in Yosuke's opinion there's nothing more soothing than an epic guitar riff.

In the absence of watches, Yosuke tells time by music. It takes two songs before his feet start feeling chilly in their sneakers. Five before he feels the prickling up his spine that tells him someone is watching, just out of sight. One more before that watcher sits, quiet, with a careful span of bench between them.

“Hey,” Souji's lips say, but Yosuke's music is up too loud to hear it.

Yosuke thinks about giving him the cold shoulder, turning away or just flat-out ignoring him. In the end, he just fiddles with the volume.

He says nothing. Neither does Souji. Music trickles from the speakers like distant rain.

“So—” he starts, at the same time Souji says, “I—”

They stop. They stare at each other. There's something odd about the look on Souji's face—odder than usual. Yosuke doesn't like it.

“I'm sorry,” Souji says, like a question—like he's testing the waters, analyzing reaction. Any other time, Yosuke would offer some reassurance, but... for some reason, an apology is exactly what he doesn't want to hear right now.

He nods. Just a short bob of acknowledgment to Souji, and then he's back to glaring at the river.

Souji coughs. It's a small, hiccupping sound, more than a little forced.

Yosuke watches him wring his hands for a while, out of the corner of his eye, before he finally gives up. He slings his headphones around his neck.

“What do you want?” he asks.

Souji’s eyes narrow—not that Yosuke can blame him. He did sound pretty bitchy, there.

“Why are you so upset?” Souji asks.

Yosuke’s grinds his teeth. It’s a perfectly reasonable question—perfectly Souji. Perfectly designed to piss him off.

“I’m not,” he lies. “It's—it's not about _me_.”

Wrong. _Of course_ it's about him, about his stupid insecurities, his stupid hero-fantasy, his stupid feelings about Saki-senpai and Souji and, and...

And he's an idiot. Whatever, old news. He just can't explain it to Souji in a way that makes sense. In a way that doesn't make Souji tell him exactly what he wants to hear—reassure him, comfort him, remove all blame until Yosuke feels like a little kid being told that the monster in his closet is nothing more than a shadow on the wall.

“I'm sorry,” Souji says. Again.

“Don't,” Yosuke bites. “Don't _apologize_ , geez—what the hell is up with you today?”

Souji blinks at him innocently. Yosuke huffs.

“You've been quiet as hell. All day. Even for you, man. What is it? Are you avoiding me or something?”

Souji looks away, back to the Samegawa. “I'm here now,” he says.

 _That's not what I asked._ Yosuke glares at the side of his skull. Fine, Souji won't say it. Just frickin' dandy.

“I get it if you're pissed at me,” Yosuke says. “But can't you just get _mad_ about it, like anybody else? Take it out on me, hit me if you have to, and then we can go back to the way things were.”

“I'm not pissed at you,” Souji says, so evenly it sounds rehearsed. False.

“Yeah, sure.” Yosuke snorts. “Keep telling yourself that.”

That actually gets a reaction, even if it's just a flick of Souji's eyes. “I'm not _telling_ anyone,” he says. “I'm not _lying_.”

He says it like the very thought is abhorrent. Like he doesn't lie _all the time_ , to all sorts of people, friends and family included. And not just about the Midnight Channel stuff either, though he's always been freakishly good at reciting a cover story.

See, the thing about Souji is that, the first time you talk to him, you think he’s too good to be true. Nobody is this kind, this brave, this smart, this frickin' _polite_ —you get suspicious. You think, there’s got to be a catch somewhere.

So you look. And you look. But the more you look at Souji, the more you start to see just how _good_ he is. You get swept up in it. You forget what you were looking for and you start to believe it. You hang on his every word like his next breath might be the one that sweeps yours away. Everything he does feels like magic, brings this warm glow to your chest, and you forget how awkward and quiet and shifty he can be because he’s just so _good_ at being good.

Most people never get past that. They look at Souji and see what they want to see. And when they find it, the—whatever it is that Souji gives them, peace or closure or advice or a well-timed compliment—they look away. They don't question it, don't wonder what it is that makes Souji so good at knowing what to say.

Talk to any girl in school, every single one of them thinks Souji's in love with them, from that shy music club girl to Ai frickin' Ebihara. Kou Ichijou thinks Souji's going to be a professional basketball player, the nurses at the hospital think Souji's determined to get into medicine, and just last week Yosuke met a woman who swore up and down that Souji was going to become a full-time daycare teacher. In August Souji spent an entire week scouring the Samegawa for a mythical fish because, and this is a direct quote, 'the shrine fox asked him to.' And that whole time, Yosuke just kept wondering, “Does he even _like_ fishing?”

Because how do you tell, with a guy like that? If you asked him to fetch you the moon, he'd make you a rocket ship and apologize that it took him so long to build.

Rise, Teddie—all the others are so caught up in him that they can’t see anything past that gentle smile. Yosuke would bet money that not even Naoto has Souji figured out. And Yosuke—well, Yosuke doesn’t claim much, but if he’s accomplished anything in his whole life, he’d like to think he’s gotten closer to Souji than anyone else on the team. Maybe anyone else in Inaba. And despite it all, he still doesn't know the most basic truths about Souji. He doesn't even know what girl he has a crush on.

Either Souji is lying to everyone—by omission, or otherwise—or he's only lying to some of them. Yosuke doesn't know which is worse.

No. Scratch that. He knows what he's most afraid of.

“Sometimes,” he says, “I don't know if you even _like_ me.”

He doesn't plan to say it. It just comes out, falling between them like spare change on the floor. The silence rattles with it.

“Why would you say that?” Souji says— _asks_ , like a real question, like he really wants to know why Yosuke would doubt the friendship they’ve built these past months, like he’s really _curious_.

Yosuke braces himself against the bench. The air against his cheeks is dropping by degrees, but his skin feels hot underneath. He can't think of an answer, can't find the words. He just shrugs.

“Of course I like you,” Souji says—and maybe the daycare lady was right, because that's definitely the kind of voice you'd use on a child, explaining the fundamental, inarguable facts of existence. “We're partners, right?”

“Right,” Yosuke says. “Right, yeah, we're partners—that's why you didn't stick up for me back there, why you spent the whole meeting staring at the fucking _sky_ , why you didn't talk to me the whole goddamn day—yeah. We're partners. Sure.”

Souji's brow furrows. “Yosuke—”

“No!” Yosuke says. “No, listen—dammit, Souji, how could you just sit there like that? We _need_ you, you're our _leader_ , and you just—it was like you weren't even _there_! We were all scared and confused and we _needed_ _you_ and you were just sitting there like you couldn’t care less! How could you _do_ that? What's wrong with you?”

“I...” Souji's eyes dart across the pavilion, anywhere but Yosuke's face. “I don't...”

Yosuke didn't realize he was still angry. But no, now it's like the anger is pouring into him from some deep reserve in the earth—so far away he doesn't even feel it—so fast he can’t stop it. “Did you think you were done with us, now that we caught the killer? ‘Oh, mystery solved, now I can go back to being Mr. Cool Loner Transfer Student and stop hanging around all these dipshits!’ Well, newflash, life doesn’t work that way! When you make a promise, you don’t just get to throw it away when you get bored!”

Souji’s face is doing something very strange. His frown and the crease in his brow is getting deeper and deeper. He doesn’t look angry, not even hurt—he looks confused.

God, what the hell is his _problem_?

“I don’t know what you’re talking about,” Souji says, voice tight.

“Oh really?” Yosuke snaps. “Then why the hell didn’t you answer your phone!”

Souji blinks once, twice.

“I called you last night,” Yosuke says. “I left voicemails, I—I was so friggin’ scared. The Midnight Channel was back and we’d just, y’know, and you just—you didn’t answer. And don’t tell me you forgot to charge your phone, you _always_ charge your phone and I called your home number too, Dojima would flip if he ever heard that message, it’s all Shadows and stuff and—Souji, I texted you like forty times, I…”

Souji looks like he’s going to say something—something comforting, some reasonable excuse. Yosuke swallows hard. He doesn’t want excuses—he wants the truth.

“So why didn’t you answer?” Yosuke says. “The way I see it, there’s only two options—either you’re pissed at me, or you’re pissed at somebody else. Which is it?”

Souji takes a slow breath. It passes in through his nose and down into that hollow core of his chest—it seems to spread through his whole body, settling him, rearranging his shoulders, changing his whole shape.

“Neither,” he says, quietly. “I wasn’t mad at you, Yosuke. I was… busy.”

“Busy,” Yosuke repeats, trying out the word to see if it sounds any less foul in his mouth than Souji’s.

Souji nods. “I…well, I watched the Midnight Channel last night, too. I started researching a theory I had and got distracted. That’s all.”

“You got _distracted_?” Yosuke strains to keep himself from shouting again—a group of women are walking by the pavilion, he doesn’t want to cause a scene even though there’s a deeper, darker part of himself that really, really does. “You saw the Midnight Channel, and you didn’t call me?” Souji opens his mouth, but Yosuke cuts him off before he can make any more excuses. “You didn’t even tell the team! You didn’t tell Naoto!”

Souji scowls at him. Yosuke feels weirdly like a little kid threatening to tattle on a fellow classmate. It’s especially weird because Yosuke was always the one getting tattled on, in elementary school.

“I don’t have to justify myself to you,” Souji mutters.

“Like hell you don’t! You have to tell _someone_ about this stuff—”

“No, I don’t,” Souji cuts him off. “I’m the leader, remember? That means I get to make decisions on my own.”

“That’s not what I meant—”

“Yes, it is,” Souji interrupts him again. Yosuke could count on one hand the number of times Souji has interrupted him before today. “You wanted me to act like a leader. Well, I am. I’m making decisions all by myself. What more do you want from me?”

There’s a hard, bitter note creeping into Souji’s voice that Yosuke’s never heard before.

“You have to tell the others,” Yosuke says. “This isn’t the kind of thing you get to make a choice about—this effects all of us, the whole investigation.”

Souji doesn’t look at him, doesn’t budge an inch.

“You have to tell them,” Yosuke says, “or I will.”

That gets a reaction. Souji looks up at him, startled.

“Yeah, I’m serious,” Yosuke says. “This is too important to keep quiet. Why would you keep this a secret, anyway? How does it help anything to hide stuff from each other?”

Souji’s mouth opens, shuts. His eyes flicker from one corner to the other, searching for some excuse to be made.

Yosuke finds, suddenly, that he doesn’t want to hear it.

“I can’t,” he says. “I can’t do this right now. Just—figure your shit out, and talk to me when you know what the hell you’re doing, okay? I’m going home.”

He doesn’t look back. But he does imagine when he turns the corner at the end of riverbank that he can see Souji out of the corner of his eye. Still sitting on that bench, still alone, staring into the sky.

***

Yosuke never had a friend like Souji before. But sometimes, he wonders if Souji’s had friends like _him_.

It’s probable. Souji’s a popular guy. It’d only be natural if he attracted people in Tokyo the way he attracts them now in Inaba. Really, there’s only one reason why Yosuke isn’t 100% positive that he’s nothing more than the latest in a long line of ‘best friends’ trailing all the way back to Souji’s elementary school days.

Souji never talks about anyone outside Inaba.

Not his parents. Not his old school. Certainly not any friends he left behind.

Yosuke used to think he was just being private, or he didn’t want to brag about all his friends back home. Lately, though, he’s been thinking something else, something he can’t shake. A theory.

“What’s wrong?” his mother asks as he slams his way in through the front door. Yosuke wouldn’t have the heart to tell her even if he could find the words. He grumbles some excuse and makes his way to his room to collapse.

The minute he flops down on his bed, he picks up his phone.

He wants to text Souji. Wants to apologize, or say something nice and pretend it never happened.

But no. No, Souji’s the one who needs to make it up to _him_. If Souji hadn’t been such an ass today, they never would’ve argued. It’s Souji’s fault.

_…isn’t it?_

Yosuke stuffs his head under his pillow. It’s musty and stifling under there, but at least this way he’s not staring at Souji’s smiling pixilated face.

***

Once, Souji left his phone in the library.

They’d been studying before summer finals. Yosuke remembers that clearly because of the way Souji’s hair looked—sweaty and plastered to his head in a way that was shockingly unattractive.

Souji had to leave for some reason—dinner with Nanako, maybe—and Yosuke was left alone in the library until he was kicked out by the librarians. It was only then, hours after Souji’d gone home, that Yosuke realized Souji’s phone was left abandoned on the table.

And—well, this next part Yosuke’s not really proud of. But Souji was so _quiet_ , especially back then, and even after knowing him for a few months Yosuke barely felt like he _knew_ him at all. Yosuke couldn’t help himself. He picked up Souji’s phone and started scrolling through it.

 _I’ll just look at his contact list_ , he told himself, as if that alone wouldn’t count as a breach of privacy, a betrayal of trust. This is why Yosuke’s such a shitty friend. He’s always nosy, always wants to know more about people than they’re willing to share, always makes excuses for himself and his own awful behavior.

Well, this time at least, he got what he deserved for sticking his nose where he shouldn’t.

Souji’s phone wasn’t filled to the brim with old friends and new acquaintances, with relatives and coworkers and girls with hearts and emojis next to their names. The whole list of Souji’s numbers barely filled the screen. There was Dojima, Ai Ebihara, someone that Yosuke thought might have been on the basketball team, his parents, every member of the investigation team… and that was it.

No old friends.

Maybe Souji really didn’t have any friends before Inaba. Maybe he lost all his contacts somehow or has them stored somewhere else.

Or maybe he just doesn’t believe in long-distance friendships. Maybe once he stops seeing someone every day he just loses interest in staying in touch. Maybe, when he goes back to Tokyo, he’ll delete all of their numbers, too.

***

_Rr-rr-rr-ring!_

Yosuke jolts upright.

It takes his eyes a few seconds to adjust to the gloom. He must’ve fallen asleep—it’s definitely nighttime, now, and his stomach’s growling. He pats the sheets of his bed, searching for his phone.

The screen blinks at him through another ring. Oh, great. It’s Chie.

“I’m sorry,” he blurts out the moment the receiver reaches his face. “I mean—things were just so crazy today and I don’t even know what’s wrong with me—”

_“Yosuke.”_

That’s not a voice for apologies. That’s the voice Chie only uses when something is very, very wrong.

 “Wh-what?” Yosuke sits up straighter. “What’s up?”

The words are barely out of his mouth before Chie’s talking again.

_“Have you seen Souji?”_

“Huh? Yeah, o-of course. We were talking by the Samegawa after the meeting…”

_“Is he there with you now?”_

“…no?”

_“Do you have any idea where he is?”_

Chie’s voice hitches. For a second he thinks it’s static on the line, but…

“Chie, what happened? Is Souji okay?”

There’s a long pause. Long enough that everything feels like slow motion, like the dawning realization right before you miss a step on the stairs and you fall down, down, down.

_“I… I don’t think so…”_

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Well. I’m still not happy with this chapter. But after fiddling with it for… eight months… I’ve decided to just post it and hope it's not an embarrassment to my name. Let me know if you like it? Or if anyone's still reading? :p
> 
> I promised I wasn't abandoning this!!!


	4. Please Reach From Somewhere

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This chapter's title is taken from _Low Point_ by Trespasser's William.
> 
> Also, as a warning, Yosuke is kind of an asshole in this chapter. I promise this is the worst he gets.

“What do you mean he’s _gone_?”

 _“What do you think!”_ Chie’s voice is so shrill it’s like an icepick to the eardrum. _“I’ve told you like nine times!”_

“No, you told me you couldn’t _find_ him, there’s a difference!” Yosuke can _hear_ Chie preparing her retort over the line. “Wait—shit, sorry.” He slams a hand over his eyes, forces himself to breathe deep. “Forget that. Let’s not fight right now, okay?”

Chie lets out a breath of static. _“Sure. Okay.”_

Yosuke braces his cell with his shoulder as he thumps down the stairs, two at a time. “So where did you look _exactly_?”

_“Ugh, I **told** you.”_

…and there goes the world’s shortest-lived truce, if the annoyance in her voice is anything to go by.

“Humor me.”

 _“Fine.”_ Another sigh. _“We checked the hospital, the Samegawa, the shopping district... Teddie and I are scoping out Junes right now…oh, and Rise’s been calling all the part time jobs she can think of. Yukiko’s still at the inn, but she’s asking anyone who comes in if they’ve seen him.”_

That’s… an annoyingly comprehensive list. Yosuke’s brain races for somewhere, anywhere they might have forgotten.

“Did you look over the dock? There’s this spot where he sometimes goes fishing—”

_“We scoured the whole river, Yosuke. He’s not there.”_

...dammit. Yosuke pinches the bridge of his nose. _Get ahold of yourself, dumbass._

_“Yosuke? You still there?”_

The note of worry in her voice jolts him back into action. “Sorry, yeah. Did you guys check his house?”

_“Kanji did, like… half an hour ago? There’s no one there.”_

“Was he sure? Did he go inside?”

_“No. The door was locked.”_

Yosuke bites down the urge to shout, _‘so?’_

“Is Kanji still around?”

_“Maybe. I think he said he was gonna pick around the neighborhood for a bit. Why?”_

Yosuke struggles into his shoes one-handed. “Tell him to meet me at Souji’s as soon as he can. And bring, I dunno, a screwdriver. Or a toolbox. Something.” Yosuke digs his hands through his hair. Shit, he has no idea what they’re gonna need…

 _“Wait wait wait!”_ Chie’s getting shrill again. _“You aren’t thinking of breaking into his house, are you?”_

“Of course I am!” Seriously, why is he the first person to think of this?

_“But that’s, like—you could get arrested!”_

Yosuke pushes the front door open with his shoulder. Night has turned the air bitter cold. He grits his teeth.

“Yeah, I could also get arrested for carrying swords in a public place.” He _has_ been arrested for carrying swords in a public place. “We do dumb things for good reasons, Chie. That’s kinda our thing.”

_“But it’s **wrong**!”_

“He might be in danger!”

“ _Well, yeah, but_ —”

“Chie.” Yosuke pauses halfway down the front steps. “How long has it been since anyone saw Souji?”

_“Uh, it’s nine o’clock now, so… six hours?”_

“And when did he—” Yosuke can’t finish the sentence. “When did Naoto-kun get that message?”

Chie almost hides the stutter in her voice. _“…f-five o’clock, maybe.”_

“That makes it, what, four hours? What do _you_ think he could do in four hours?”

Silence on the line.

“We both know Souji,” Yosuke says, voice low like a secret. “Has he _ever_ done anything like this before?”

He only knows Chie’s still there by the sound of her breath.

 _“…do you really think he’s still in his house?”_ she asks, finally.

“I dunno.” Yosuke tugs at his jacket zipper just for something to do with his hands. “It’s worth a shot, right?”

Chie says nothing. The slap of Yosuke’s sneakers on the frozen ground makes for a pitiful answer.

 _“Yosuke,”_ she says, after a silence so long and heavy he almost wondered if she hung up on him. _“Do you... d-do you know? Why he’s doing this?”_

…god, she sounds like she’s trembling.

He tries to think of a way to say what he’s thinking without saying it—because saying it makes it real, somehow, makes the weight in his gut triple and his mouth go dry. He tries to think of something comforting that doesn’t feel like a lie.

_“Y-you don’t think… Souji wouldn’t—”_

“Don’t!” Yosuke cuts her off. “Just. Don’t say it.” He lets out a shudder of his own. “I’ll text you when I get to Souji’s, okay?”

He doesn’t wait for her answer before hanging up. They don’t have time for pleasantries, anyway.

_***_

Four hours.

It’s been four hours since Souji dropped off the face of the Earth. Texts don’t get through to him and calls go straight to voicemail. Yosuke tries again the second he hangs up on Chie, but all he gets is a _your call cannot be completed as dialed_.

Four _hours_. In the span of one nap Yosuke’s day has gone from ‘shitty’ to ‘apocalyptic’ and he wasn’t even awake to process it. He’s pissed at himself for sleeping through it but really, it’s not like he would’ve made a difference anyway. This is, what, the millionth time everything’s gone to shit in the past eight months? How many times is he going to lose people before the universe cuts him some fucking slack?

… _dammit_.

Yosuke drums his fingers on the back of his neck. He can’t think about that right now. This isn’t like Saki or Nanako—they don’t know Souji’s in danger. He could’ve just passed out on the couch and turned off his phone or something.

It’s just that message—the one he sent to Naoto—it’s making Yosuke lose his shit. Why would Souji _say_ that? Yosuke can’t think of a reason.

Well, the only reasons he can think of are terrible.

Yosuke speeds up. He’s now running at a kind of awkward jog. He doesn’t have the stamina to run flat out, but damn if he doesn’t wish he could. He wishes his bike hadn’t literally kicked the bucket (or well, trash can) last month. He wishes he had a motorcycle or, hell, a car. Anything to get rid of this feeling of moving in slow motion.

Souji’s street is quiet, emptied. A few cats pick through the bins in front of his house, but that’s it. Yosuke can just make out a vague, hulking shape crouching in their shadow like the world’s most obvious burglar. Man, they’re gonna be lucky if no one calls the cops.

Yosuke cups a hand around his mouth. “Yo, Kanji!”

“ _Shit_!”

Kanji jolts so hard at the sound of his name his feet leave the ground. Yosuke tries not to laugh at the way he raises his fists at the same time he covers his face.

“D-dammit, Senpai.” Kanji drops his hands, flushing. “You scared the shit out of me! Thought you were a cop or somethin’.”

“Sorry,” says Yosuke, even though he’s not.

Kanji jerks on the bottom of the coat that he is, for once, actually wearing. “Aw, you scared the cats…”

Yosuke follows his gaze towards the small shadows now skittering away between the houses. “Really don’t think that’s the issue right now.”

“Hmph.” Kanji scuffs his toes against the curb.

“So, did you bring the stuff?” Yosuke looks around like maybe Kanji stashed his toolbox behind the dumpster.

“Uh. Yeah, ‘bout that…” Kanji pats his pockets. “Hang on a sec.”

Yosuke, again, has to stop himself from gawking while Kanji roots around in his coat. Does Kanji even _realize_ how much he looks like a drug dealer when he does that?

 “Ah, here!”

Kanji chucks something at him—something Yosuke has just enough reflexes to catch. It stings when it hits his palm. Harder than a baseball, but about the same size.

 “Kanji?” he says, flipping the thing over in his hand. It’s definitely too small for a toolbox.

“Yeah, Senpai?”

Yosuke glares at the underside of the box. It’s pink. With flowers.

“Is this a friggin’ sewing kit?” he says.

Kanji’s mouth flaps between emotions for a minute before settling somewhere between ‘angry’ and ‘embarrassed.’

“I was in a hurry,” he snaps. “Wasn’t like you told me what you needed it for, anyway!”

Oh. Right. Of course Chie wouldn’t say.

“Breaking and entering,” Yosuke sighs.

At any other time, the look of petrified fear that strikes Kanji’s face would be funny. Right now, though, Yosuke’s too impatient to care.

“Wh-what? Like, right now?”

Yosuke resists the urge to slap a hand to his forehead in frustration. “Uh, no, I was thinking next Saturday! Yes, right now!”

“I—I dunno, Senpai.” Kanji actually takes a step back, looking over his shoulder like he thinks Dojima and the chief of police might be hiding behind the bins. “This’s kinda—”

“It’s an emergency!”

“Yeah, but—!”

Yosuke gives up. He yanks Kanji back behind the garbage can, where they’ll be at least a little more concealed than _right in the goddamn open_. Forget chief of police, it’s the nosy neighbors they have to be worried about.

“Souji is _missing_ ,” he hisses, for once ignoring the bristling I’m-gonna-punch-you hunch of Kanji’s shoulders. “He’s _gone_ and he’s probably in deep _shit_ and if something happens to him because we were too busy dicking around to save him I’m gonna fucking kill myself and come back from the grave just to kick your ass! So man the _fuck_ up and help me!”

“Shit, Senpai!” Kanji jerks out of Yosuke’s grip. “I’ll help you! God, man, I never said I wasn’t gonna.” He scuffs the ground with his shoe again. “ _Geez_.”

“Okay.” Yosuke lets out a breath. _Chill before you bust something, Yosuke_. “Okay. Let’s. Let’s do this. Uh.”

He glances at the Dojima’s front door.

He feels, suddenly, like he’s at an exam he didn’t study for. Except this time, there’s no Souji to nudge him in the back and mutter the answer.

“H-how do we do this?” he asks, not meeting Kanji’s eye.

“Well.” Kanji puts his hands on his hips. “Guess we should start by picking the lock. Right, Senpai?”

Yosuke glares miserably at his sneakers. “Right. Yeah.”

Kanji gets excited when they decide to use one of the pins from his stupid sewing kit as a lockpick. The look he throws Yosuke as he tests it out is smugness worthy of Chie. _Ugh_.

Yosuke wills himself not to think about how impossibly lame it is to deliver a speech like that and then just stand around waiting while his kohai fumbles with the lock. If he actually allows himself to feel the embarrassment he might start screaming.

Picking a lock seems to involve a lot of muttering and cursing. Yosuke dances from foot to foot while Kanji drops the pin _again_. It feels like his skin is crystalizing from the cold at the same time his limbs are burning with nervous energy. This is taking too _long_.

“C’mon, man.” Yosuke glances over his shoulder for the fourth time in as many minutes. “Can’t you hurry it up?”

“Don’t rush me!” Kanji grumbles, and freezes. “...oh. _Shit_.”

“What? What?” Yosuke huddles closer. “What happened?”

“Uh, nothing. Just, the pin sorta… snapped.”

Yosuke yanks at his own hair. “Seriously? _Seriously_?”

“Dude, chill.”

“Shut up!” Yosuke slumps against the wall because if he doesn’t he’s probably gonna punch something. “Ugh, I think _I_ could’ve done this faster.”

The moment the words leave his mouth, Yosuke braces for impact. _Stop antagonizing the kid who’s built like a truck, idiot!_

But Kanji just turns on him with a strange, squinty look.

“…you wanna try?” he asks.

…that was not the response he was expecting.

“Huh? Uh, I…” Yosuke looks down at the pink plastic sewing case. “…I wouldn’t know what to do, man,” he admits.

Kanji shrugs. “S’okay. I don’t either.”

“Wait, _what_?” Yosuke snaps back to attention. “You—do you even know how to do this?”

“What, break into someone’s house?” Kanji shakes his head. “No idea.”

“But… but you’re—”

“What?” Kanji’s face suddenly screws into a scowl. “I’m _what_ , Senpai?”

Yosuke, wisely, shuts his mouth.

He looks up. The slight overhang of the roof juts into the purple-black sky. Somewhere, just out of sight, is Souji’s bedroom window.

“Maybe we should try a different angle,” Yosuke says.

“Hm?” Kanji sits back on his heels. “Like what?”

Yosuke rubs the back of his neck. “I’m… really gonna regret this, but… think you can hoist me up there?”

He points to the roof. Kanji frowns in thought.

“…yeah, probably.” He nods. “What the heck. Let’s try it!”

Yosuke paces back and forth through the Dojima’s front lot. There doesn’t seem to be any place where the roof slopes lower, or any obvious handholds. This is _not_ gonna be easy.

Kanji positions himself under the overhang. He cups his huge, bearlike hands together. “C’mon, Senpai!” he says, suddenly excited again. “Let’s do this!”

Yosuke steps forward. _Ugh_.

“D-don’t drop me, okay?” he mutters, trying to position his foot in the sling of Kanji’s palm. This always looks so much easier in movies…

“Wouldn’t dream of it,” Kanji grunts as Yosuke presses down on his shoulder for balance.

There’s a brief, terrifying second as Yosuke’s other foot leaves the ground and he teeters, totters, with nothing but Kanji’s meaty fingers separating him from embarrassment and possible concussion. Then he grabs ahold of the roof, and Kanji pushes up, and he just manages to heave himself onto the overhang.

“Great job, Senpai!”

“Th-thanks,” Yosuke says, dazed. He forces himself into a crouch and pads carefully across the roof. Souji’s window is shut, dark. Still, after a few minutes of futile tugging and cursing, he manages to get it to budge.

“How’s it going?” Kanji asks in a stage whisper.

“Fine,” Yosuke says, distracted. Souji’s room is totally dark. He can barely make out anything inside but the looming shape of furniture. Crap, he should’ve brought a flashlight.

He sticks his head inside. “S-Souji?” he says, suddenly unable to raise his voice above a whisper. “I’m coming in, okay?”

No answer.

“All right, well, can’t say I didn’t warn you.” He swings his legs into the dark abyss beyond the sill.

And pitches forward, falling flat on his face.

The blackness is broken by sharp sparks across his eyes. He hit something. His hand flies out to touch whatever it was— _hard, sharp… the corner of Souji’s coffee table?_

“Dude! You okay?”

“Don’t shout, Kanji!” Yosuke growls at the window. “Someone’ll hear us!”

There’s a faint grumbling outside. Yosuke chooses to ignore it. Instead, he tries to map out the shape of the room with his hands.

He wishes he could say that he’s been in Souji’s room often enough to have it memorized by feel, but the truth is Souji’s only invited him up here once or twice. There’s the looming edge of his couch, that’s definitely his desk, and that soft thing he just tripped over has to be the neat roll of his futon—

His eyes are starting to adjust to the gloom just as he reaches the light switch. He hesitates, thumb on the lever. There’s something vaguely illicit about this—and not because he broke into his best friend’s house without permission. It’s so dark in here, so _abandoned_. It’s like the absence has taken on a life of its own, smothering, pushing back against intruders. _Not your business_ , it says. _Don’t go where you’re not wanted._

 _“_ Shut up,” Yosuke mutters. For once, this isn’t about being dumb or clingy or nosing where he shouldn’t be. This is for Souji.

He flicks the switch. The light flickers in, splashing the shadows back behind the furniture, but it doesn’t dispel that uncanny feeling. Yosuke used to think Souji’s room looked cozy. Now it seems like the light is only illuminating the spaces between things, the vast empty hollows. It’s so _neat_. It’s like no one lives here at all.

Like Souji never lived here. Never even was.

It hits him like a heart attack. His chest is tight, his fingers sting, his whole body twinges.

“Souji!” he shouts, because who cares about quiet, who cares if he’s caught as long as Souji is _found_. “Souji, man, if this is some—if you’re trying to prove a point or something, then I got it, all right? Just come on out!”

The walls don’t even have the decency to echo back at him.

Yosuke flings himself downstairs so fast his feet barely touch the steps. He doesn’t look for a light. The downstairs is brighter anyway, the shadows broken by streetlights through the windows. The curtains are open.

Souji must’ve left before the sun went down. Unless—

He double-checks the couch, the table, the kitchen. He slams open every door he sees. _BAM_ Dojima’s bedroom. _BAM_ Nanako’s bedroom. _BAM_ the garage, the linen closet, the cupboard by the stairs. His hands slip on the bathroom door—remembering the last time he was here, remembering Souji’s chin dipping into the bathwater—

There’s nothing. The tub is empty. No softly sleeping Souji to ease the squeeze in Yosuke’s chest. No warm lights and steam on the mirror. It’s dark and cold. His stomach churns.

He walks into the living room. He thinks about folding up, letting his knees give way and falling flat on the floor just to see if gravity’s still working. His head feels light and his mouth tastes like cotton. His legs move too slowly to see.

 _Calm down_ , he tells himself, but in his head it sounds like Souji’s voice and that only makes his breath come faster. _Shit_ , he’s freaking out, he’s really losing it, he’s so fucking _scared_ —

There’s a _thud_ behind him. Yosuke might let out the tiniest of manly screams.

“Whoa, hey! It’s just me!”

“K-Kanji?” Yosuke squints. “How the—how in the hell did you get in here?”

“Back door.” Kanji makes an audible shrug. “Wasn’t locked. Can you believe it? Guess we shoulda tried there first, huh?”

…Yosuke is gonna jump off a fucking bridge.

Kanji gives the room a quick once-over. “S’really dark in here. You know where the switch is?”

Kanji doesn’t wait for an answer before starting to peer behind the couch. Slowly, mindlessly, Yosuke follows him.

It’s shocking how much of a relief it is to poke around the room with something so mundane to look for. Yosuke’s breath evens out, the noose around his gut loosening just enough to let the panic pass. But as they peek behind shelves and blindly feel along walls, Yosuke thinks the change in atmosphere has a lot to do with how he’s no longer searching alone.

Kanji is… well, Yosuke’s not sure he could call him a _friend_ , exactly. He’s too big and too dumb and probably the teammate that Yosuke understands the least—aside from Naoto, maybe. Hell, it’s not like Yosuke hasn’t _tried_ to play nice with him, it’s just that Kanji keeps setting himself up for these dumb jokes and honestly Yosuke doesn’t have enough of a mouth filter to get along with anybody this sensitive. Kanji’s kind of a baby. A baby with forearms as big as Yosuke’s neck.

But the thing is, when they’ve both shut their mouths and pulled their heads out of their asses long enough to work together, Yosuke kinda wishes they got along more often. When he’s not punching the lights out of somebody or blushing up to his ears, Kanji can be _really_ calm. Like, Souji levels of calm. Like, so calm Yosuke feels less spazy just standing near him.  Even when Kanji flies off the handle it’s like three minutes of freak out and then he’s back to regularly scheduled programming. The kid is incapable of holding a grudge. Even after half a year of Yosuke pushing all the buttons he can reach, Kanji’s still totally happy to call him ‘senpai’ and do shit like this with him. Yosuke doesn’t get it. Nobody’s that good-natured.

It’s funny, too, the way Kanji is clumsy and careful at the same time. When he’s not trying to scare the crap out of some dumb mouthy middle-schooler, when he’s just hanging around with the team or walking home with Souji—not that Yosuke’s spied on him walking home with Souji, of course—when no one is watching, Kanji gets all… _small_. He pulls in his shoulders and puts his hands behind his back and moves in these little shuffle-steps like he’s afraid he’s gonna bump into something and break it.

And Yosuke doesn’t get it, because Yosuke’s always trying to fill up more space than he takes, ever since he was a little kid and he used to bounce up and down in his seat to get the teachers to call on him—wow, that was a long time ago—because Yosuke will take anything, even being hated, over being ignored.

They find the switch after a few minutes. Light smothers the room like a blanket.

Yosuke sits down on the couch. He doesn’t mean to, but he finds his head falling forward into his hands.

 _This is what happens when you’re running on five shitty hours of sleep_ , Yosuke thinks, and almost laughs at himself. He’s pathetic. _Pathetic_.

He feels a heavy weight land beside him on the couch.

“Uh, Senpai? You feeling okay?”

Yosuke huffs through his teeth. “Yeah. I’m fine. I’m just _swell_.”

It’s kind of astounding, how much Kanji doesn’t react to the bitterness in his voice.

 “Listen…” Kanji shifts, making the couch creak. “Don’t hit me for sayin’ this, but… maybe you outta go home. You look like shit.”

What a flatterer.

“No. Can’t.” Yosuke shakes his head. “Not until we find Souji.”

Kanji drums his fingers on his knees. “Senpai…”

There’s something leading about his tone that makes Yosuke tense.

“…you sure you don’t know where Souji-senpai is?”

Yosuke peeks through his fingers to glare at him. “Seriously? First Chie, now you—what’s with you guys? Why do you keep thinking I’d know anything about Souji that you don’t?”

“I dunno!” Kanji throws up his hands in defense. “You guys’re—y’know—r-really close.”

It hits Yosuke like ice water. Just a few months ago—a few days, even—a comment like that would’ve left him glowing. _Of course_ he’s close with Souji, so close that all their friends can see it, closer than anyone else, he’s Souji’s best friend, his partner, _his_ —

But none of that is true. None of it. It’s all lies, stories, made-up wishful-thinking _bullshit_.

“Yeah,” Yosuke says, and there’s something cold and crystalizing under his skin. “Sure, yeah, we’re _close_. We’re such good friends, I’ve got no goddamn clue where he is!”

“I didn’t—”

“Yeah, whatever,” Yosuke snarls. “God, Kanji, what the hell’re you thinking? You think Souji really gives a crap about telling me why he does anything he does? You think I know _anything_ about him? You think he _trusts_ me? Why the hell would he trust me? I’m—I’m just—”

_Pathetic. Useless. Replaceable._

“Senpai…”

Kanji moves like he’s going to put a hand on Yosuke’s shoulder.

Yosuke jumps off the couch. “Don’t touch me, asshole!”

“Hey! I was just—!”

“Yeah, I know what _you were just_.” Yosuke bites the words through his teeth. “God, you’re such a _creep_!”

Kanji’s face goes dark.

“Yeah, a creep!” Yosuke repeats, just to see that twitch in Kanji’s brow again. “Tch, I bet you’re just hoping Souji’s in danger so you can sweep in and save him, right? Anything so you can get closer to him! That’s all anyone ever wants, to be his best friend or—hell, I bet you wanna fuck him too—”

Yosuke doesn’t see it coming. One second he’s watching the fire rise in Kanji’s cheeks and the next he’s on his back, staring up, and there’s about two hundred pounds of pissed-off underclassmen sitting on his chest.

A hand presses over his mouth.

“Shut. Up,” Kanji growls. His jaw works furiously, like he’s chewing his way through some impossible equation— _Yosuke plus insults plus lack of sleep equals_ —and Yosuke looks up, up, into that big stupid face and wonders if he’s going to die.

Honestly, death sounds pretty good right now. Not like the afterlife could get any worse than this.

“...I’m gonna let you off here.”

Kanji spits the words out like watermelon seeds.

“But only ’cause we got a mission and if you get hurt it’s gonna make things harder on everybody else. Don’t think I won’t kick your ass the next time you mouth off to me. Got that, you piece of shit?”

Yosuke can’t move his lips. He nods instead.

“Good.” Kanji sits back a little, putting less pressure on Yosuke’s gut. “Now if the next words outta your mouth aren’t ‘ _I’m very fucking sorry, Kanji,_ ’ I’m gonna break your face, got it?”

Kanji takes his hand away.

“Sorry,” Yosuke says. His voice sounds very small. Distant.

Kanji clucks his tongue. He swings off of Yosuke and into a crouch on the floor. Yosuke picks himself up slowly—partly because he’s too scared to make any sudden movements in the face of someone who could punch the teeth out of his mouth without breaking a sweat, and partly because literally every inch of him hurts. He feels like he’s been struck by lightning. Like, he actually has a point of comparison for that, and it seriously feels like Kanji just Ziodyne’d the shit out of him.

Yosuke leans against the couch, letting his neck fall back against the cushions. It’s not really comfortable, but he’s too exhausted to move. Out of the corner of his eye, Kanji’s collapsing too. He’s sitting with his back to the couch on the other side, gigantic legs pulled to his chest and chin resting on his knees. He looks… well. Yosuke’s not good enough at reading him to be sure.

The silence is heavy. Yosuke worries his lip between his teeth.

“Thanks,” he says, after a minute.

“Huh?” Kanji turns to stare at him—six feet of blank confusion and torn-up jeans boring a whole in the side of his face. Yosuke tries not to flush.

“Th-thanks,” he repeats. “For not. Uh. Killing me?”

Kanji snorts. “Sure. Whatever.”

He goes back to staring at the opposite wall. His jaw’s clenched so tight Yosuke can see the muscles pulsing in his neck. Yosuke looks away.

A glimmer catches his eye. In the lamplight, he can easily pick out his reflection on Souji’s television screen. From this angle, he doesn’t look much different from a shadow.

“Kanji,” he says, and stops.

“What?” Kanji grunts. “You got something to say?”

Yosuke opens his mouth. For once, there’s nothing rising to the surface.

“… _oh_ ,” he manages, weakly.

“Senpai? Wh-what’s wrong?”

Yosuke doesn’t even register the words over the rushing in his head.

He crawls forward. The last thing he wants to do right now is edge closer to that pitch-black screen, but he doesn’t have a choice. Involuntary, instinctual.

It lies discarded on the floor, unwanted and wrinkled as a candy wrapper. It sticks out so starkly in the barren room Yosuke can’t believe he didn’t notice it sooner.

The pink blanket. Nanako’s blanket.

Yosuke runs his hands along the satin edge. A pattern of rabbits smirk sappily between his fingers. He remembers this blanket. He remembers it wrapped around Nanako’s shoulders on a rainy summer afternoon, her little body held in Souji’s arms while the three of them watched old movies on the couch. It was so perfect, the kind of memory that belongs in sepia, a polaroid of nostalgia so intense it was melancholic just to live through. Yosuke remembers his hands clutched around his knees, thinking, _I will never be this happy again_ ; wishing, _I shouldn’t have come_. Because he knew, more pointedly than he’d ever known before, that he didn’t belong in this moment. That Nanako wasn’t his sister to dote on, that this couch wasn’t his to recline on, and that Souji was never going to be his family. It didn’t matter that they were friends. One day, he would have to let him go.

Yosuke clutches the plush to his chest.

He remembers this blanket. He remembers how, not even a day ago, it was draped over Souji’s TV set like a funeral shroud. And now it’s been tossed aside, leaving the gaping maw of a screen to mock them where they stand.

Words echo in his head. The ones Souji sent to Naoto’s phone, right before dropping out of reach.

 _Don’t look for me_. _I’m sorry._

“Kanji, I… I think I know where Souji is.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> **Some thoughts:**
> 
>  
> 
>  **1:** I apologize for ending every chapter on a cliffhanger.
> 
>  **2:** You guys leave the best comments. Seriously. I try to reply to as many of them as I can but if I don't answer yours, trust me, it's just 'cause I couldn't think of what to say. Every time I get a comment I get so so so happy guys, it's the best thing :D
> 
>  **3:** I don't know how long the next chapter will take me, but I've been having some struggles lately--and some fluffier ideas for other fandoms--that might mean this'll be another slow update. I'll try to have it up before November, but no promises.
> 
>  **4:** My tumblr is [here](http://jellyfishline.tumblr.com/). I highly recommend you send me some cheerleading messages there. Sometimes posting fic on the internet feels like screaming into the void--I need your feedback to know that I'm reaching people and that what I'm writing matters, even if it's in small way.
> 
>  **5:** Seriously. You guys are wonderful. This fic would've stayed as a one-shot if I didn't have such lovely readers <3


	5. Interlude

The world is quiet.

Empty. Waiting. Like a house with no one inside, it beckons. _Come in_ , it says. _Bring life to this void._ _I want to know you. I want to understand._

_Come in._

He walks forward. Shadows dance around his vision, but none approach. The katana in his hands gleams white.

_Okay_ , Souji thinks. _Okay, I'm here. I'm listening._

_I give up._

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I swear I am gonna finish this fic even if it kills me :p


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